Hong Kong-listed mainland banks fell roughly 3.4 percent on Monday, the first trading day since the mainland's banking authority raised the deposit reserve ratio, a move that aims to drain the market's excess liquidity.

 

The share price of the country's top lender, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, slid 3.43 percent to HK$4.78, Bank of China dropped 3.01 percent to HK$4.19 and China Construction Bank slipped 3.36 percent to HK$4.89.

 

China Merchants Bank, the nation's most profitable bank with the highest share price, also fell 3.35 percent to HK$16.14.

 

Hong Kong-based analysts ascribe the dive in banking stocks to the central bank's new policy on the deposit reserve ratio.

 

This is the fourth time in the past seven months that the central bank has lifted the reserve ratio to curb excess capital in the banking system.

 

One of Hong Kong's largest listed companies, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, whose long awaited US$18 billion unit sale caused a huge stir in both the Hong Kong and India markets, has finally come up with a confirmed timetable for picking bidders.

 

The company, which is headed by Li Ka-shing, the wealthiest man in China, is selling a controlling stake in its Indian mobile telephone unit, Hutchison Essar.

 

Market sources close to the deal said the group will select a preferred bidder before the Spring Festival holiday that falls in the middle of next month.

 

Hutchison Whampoa has attracted four interested parties so far from domestic and foreign bidders who valued Hutchison Essar at between $14 billion and $18 billion.

 

Hong Kong International Airport could take a stake of nearly 50 percent in Zhuhai Airport, the smallest in both passenger numbers and cargo volumes among the five airports in the Pearl River Delta.

 

The two airports have agreed to set up a joint-venture, Hong Kong-Zhuhai Airport Management, and Zhuhai Airport said it was willing to offer as much as a 49 percent holding to its bigger peer in Hong Kong.

 

The chief financial controller of Hong Kong airport said the airport had not decided how big a stake it wants to own.

 

(China Daily January 11, 2007)