Hong Kong shares widened its gains to 2.82 percent near ending on Friday, tracking gains on the Chinese mainland's market, due to a plan to increase the quota for qualified investors in Chinese mainland.

The benchmark index opened 0.35 percent higher, once dipped to its intraday low of 19744.45 during the morning session, but rocketed to the intraday high of 20413.61 before the ending tracking Chinese mainland market. The index surged 556.94 points, or 2.82 percent, to close at 20,318.62.

Turnover rose to HK$75.66 billion? (9.77 billion U.S. dollars) from Thursday's HK$57.77 billion (US$7.46 billion).

China issued draft rules Friday, planning to increase the amount which an individual Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) fund can invest in the country's financial markets.

The upward limit of investment quota for an overseas institute under the QFII program was increased to US$1 billion from the previous US$800 million, under the draft rules, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement on its website.

Analysts in Hong Kong said they expect the local benchmark index to continue to track gains in Chinese shares in the near term.

ICBC rose 4.7 percent to HK$5.63, China Construction Bank was up 3.6 percent at HK$6.04, and Bank of China gained 3.7 percent to HK$3.95.

Chinese mainland developers continued to be the biggest gainers Friday. Sino Ocean Land was up 5.6 percent at HK$8.06 after a 9.5 percent gain Thursday, and China Overseas Land was 5.3 percent higher at HK$16.98 following gains of 4.9 percent in the previous session.

Hong Kong developers followed the uptrend. Hang Lung Properties rose 6.7 percent to HK$26.30, and Sino Land was up 5.3 percent to HK$13.90.

Chinese telecom stock China Mobile was up 3.26 percent to HK$77.55. China Unicom moved up 2.87 percent to HK$10.74.

Heavyweight HSBC Holdings was up 1.3 percent to HK$82.05.

HKEX was up 3.43 per cent to HK$141.7.

(Xinhua News Agency September 4, 2009)