SHANGHAI: China stocks fell on Friday, on course to book the first weekly decline in five, after the country’s central bank left a key policy rate unchanged, while declining home prices dragged property shares lower.

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• China’s Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.5%, while the blue-chip CSI300 Index slipped 0.2% by the midday break.

• Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng dropped 2.1%, and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index slumped 2.4%.

• The broad Asian stocks market also slumped, tracking tech-led declines on Wall Street overnight after hotter-than-forecast US inflation knocked back bets for how soon and often the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.

• China’s central bank left the one-year medium-term lending facility rate unchanged while withdrawing cash from a medium-term policy loan operation on Friday, as authorities continued to prioritise currency stability amid uncertainty over the timing of expected Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.

• “We expect there is limited room for PBOC (People’s Bank of China) policy easing before global central banks start to cut rates,” said Lynn Song, chief economist, Greater China at ING.

• China’s new home prices dropped for an eighth straight month in February, official data showed on Friday, suggesting the fragile property market is struggling to find a bottom despite a slew of measures to shore up the sector.

• New home prices fell 0.3% month-on-month, in line with January’s decline. On a year-on-year basis, prices fell 1.4%, faster than the 0.7% drop in January and the biggest decline in 13 months.

• The CSI 300 Real Estate Index lost 1.1%, and the Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index slumped 3.3%.

• Shares in energy, new energy, artificial intelligence dropped between 1.4% and 1.7%.

• Tech giants listed in Hong Kong tumbled 2.8%.