By David Turner in Tokyo and Dave Shellock in London
Friday, January 12, 2007
China continued to attract attention yesterday as the capitalisation of the nation's equity markets exceeded $1,000bn for the first time and the value of the renminbi overtook the Hong Kong dollar for the first time in 13 years.
China now ranks as Asia's third-largest equity market by capitalisation, after Japan ($4,800bn) and Hong Kong ($2,100bn).
That follows a surge in stock prices in 2006 that pushed the Shanghai Composite up 130 per cent after Beijing put into effect market reforms.
Yesterday there were mixed performances from the main Chinese stock indexes. Shanghai's hard-currency B-share index leapt 7 per cent amid fresh talk of a merger with renminbi-denominated A-shares, though this was denied by the securities regulator.
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