Stocks see best week in a month as tech shares rally

Chinese mainland stocks edged up on Friday to post their best week in a month, aided by strong gains in shares of technology companies.

The blue-chip CSI300 index ended 0.2 percent higher at 3,405.02 points while the Shanghai Composite Index closed flat at 2,795.31 points.

Over the past week, CSI300 went up 2.7 percent while the Shanghai index gained 2 percent, both posting their best weeks since mid-July.

Technology shares rallied after China said it has revamped a national leadership group charged with planning and studying its key technological development strategies, signaling a potential policy boost for home-grown tech firms.

The tech-heavy start-up board ChiNext rallied 2 percent over the past week, snapping a threeweek losing streak.

But gains in the market were still capped as worries lingered over the ongoing trade frictions with the US.

This week, analysts expect the A-share market to maintain a momentum of growth, as investors are likely to pour into the market what they believe has the lowest valuation in history. Both the Shanghai index and CSI300 are down more than 10 percent since late May.

In addition, more foreign capital is expected to flow into the mainland stock markets given regulator stimulus.

China’s securities regulator said on Wednesday that it will revise regulations on the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) and the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII) schemes, in order to ease access and expand the scope of foreign capital investment.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission also said on its website that it will support an increase in the proportion of A-shares in the MSCI index and improve rules on share buybacks by listed firms to optimize the capital structure of public companies.