SHANGHAI: China blue-chip stocks rebounded slightly on Tuesday, after a five-day losing streak, with tourism companies leading the gains amid rising enthusiasm for winter travel, while Hong Kong shares closed down for a sixth session on lingering weak sentiment.

The blue-chip CSI 300 Index and the Shanghai Composite Index both edged up 0.2% at market close.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped 0.2%, and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index lost 0.6%.

Other Asian stock indexes were mostly higher after a tech-led surge on Wall Street as investors await the next set of U.S inflation numbers due this week, which could hint at when the Federal Reserve might start cutting interest rates.

“There were few signs of a recovery in the first week of 2024, with a risk-off move broadly across China’s asset classes,” said Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura.

“We think the PBOC (central bank) is quite likely to cut its benchmark lending rates next Monday.” ** Winter tourism in China has rebounded sharply in a welcome boon to economically weak regions in the north struggling to recover from years of pandemic gloom, and providing a boost to sluggish domestic consumption.

Destinations in China’s northeastern rust-belt, such as the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province, have attracted droves of domestic visitors from warmer climes in the past weeks.

The CSI Tourism Thematic Index jumped 3.8%, with winter tourism-theme stocks Changbai Mountain Tourism Co and Dalian Sunasia Tourism Holding up 10% each by their daily upper limits.

Shares in real estate and new energy rose more than 0.9% each.

In Hong Kong, tech giants slipped 0.9%, with food-delivery giant Meituan down 4.6%.