SHANGHAI: China stocks ended higher on Thursday, as regulators played down inflation worries and as Sino-US talks helped underpin sentiment.

The blue-chip CSI300 index rose 0.7%, to 5,271.47, while the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.5%to 3,610.86.

The tech-heavy start-up board ChiNext rose 2.4%, while Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR50 index added 1.6%.

Small- and medium-cap sectors performed well, as market participants favour growth stocks due to relatively friendly liquidity conditions at home and continued loose liquidity abroad, Vanho Securities said in a report.

A strong yuan also helps bring more foreign inflows to the country’s equities market, the brokerage added.

Investors on Thursday purchased 9.5 billion yuan ($1.49 billion) worth of A-shares via the Stock Connect linking mainland and Hong Kong, according to Refinitiv data.

Sino-US talks also helped lift sentiment.

Shares in Chinese companies, which have business cooperation with TikTok, climbed after US President Joe Biden withdrew a series of Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok.

Bucking the broad strength, developers fell after the country’s top banking and insurance regulator warned of bubbles in the real-estate sector.