Hong Kong stocks rose slightly on Monday, as fears of a full-blown Sino-US trade war receded ahead of a flurry of Chinese economic data in the coming weeks. The Hang Seng index rose 0.2 percent, to 29,994.26 points, while the China Enterprises Index gained 0.6 percent, to 11,966.41 points.
A flurry of Chinese data in the coming weeks is expected to show that the world's second-largest economy remained strong in April, underpinned by a pickup in industrial output and a rebound in exports despite rising trade tensions with the United States. The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares rose 2.1 percent, while the IT sector dipped 0.56 percent, the financial sector was 0.06 percent higher and the property sector dipped 0.26 percent. The top gainer on Hang Seng was Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd up 4.55 percent, while the biggest loser was Lenovo Group Ltd which was down 2.96 percent.
The top gainers among H-shares were CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd up 5.91 percent, followed by CNOOC Ltd gaining 3.06 percent and New China Life Insurance Co Ltd up by 2.97 percent. The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance Co Ltd which was down 2.61 percent, Huaneng Power International Inc which fell 0.9 percent and Tencent Holdings Ltd down by 0.7 percent.