SHANGHAI: China stocks seesawed in thin trading volume on Wednesday as many urban workers left ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays and with some investors booking profits on concerns of any uncertainty when markets are closed for the festival.

China’s blue-chip CSI 300 Index slipped 0.2% and the Shanghai Composite Index ended almost flat.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index edged up 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively.

Millions of urban workers were on the move across China on Wednesday ahead of the expected Friday peak of its Lunar New Year mass migration, as China’s leaders looked to get its COVID-battered economy moving.

The week-long holiday officially starts on Jan. 21.

While many analysts say a return to economic normality will be gradual as the impact of COVID weakens, some see the Lunar New Year as a welcome early consumption boost.

But with so many people on the move, health experts fear a deepening of the COVID outbreak, leaving the elderly in rural villages particularly vulnerable.

Chinese investors tend to be cautious ahead of the long holidays, and some booked profits before the markets shut.

Foreign investors bought China shares via the Stock Connect scheme for an 11th straight session. In less than three weeks of 2023, foreign buying of Chinese stocks has exceeded last year’s total.

Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He told the World Economic Forum that China would support the growth of the private economy in 2023 and that it was impossible for the country to return to a planned economy.

Shares of Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest gaming company, and those of smaller rival NetEase Inc rose 1.7 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively, after China’s video games regulator granted the first gaming licences in 2023, further easing an industry crackdown.