Asian markets mixed; China lowers its growth target
Markets in Asia were mixed by the end of Tuesday, with China announcing at its annual parliamentary meeting that it has cut its growth target.
Shares in mainland China were higher, with the Shenzhen component rising 2.252 percent to 9,595.74 and the Shanghai composite advancing 0.88 percent to 3,054.25. The Shenzhen composite advanced 2.282 percent to 1,635.98.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was around 0.1 percent higher, as of its final hour of trading.
China kicked off its annual parliamentary meeting, the National People’s Congress, on Tuesday where Premier Li Keqiang said the country must be prepared for a “tough struggle” as it faces a “grave and more complicated environment.”
Official economic growth target this year, he said, will be 6.0 to 6.5 percent, lower than the growth of 6.6 percent in 2018, the slowest pace since 1990.
“I think the bigger point here is that they’re trying to essentially avoid crashing the economy with excess debt while avoiding a very severe downturn in economic activity,” Andrew Collier, managing director at Orient Capital Research, told CNBC’s “Street Signs” on Tuesday.
“A combination of domestic stimulus and a trade deal with the US over the next few weeks could be the shot in the arm the Chinese economy needs and lead to a dramatic increase in investor sentiment globally,” analysts at Rakuten Securities Australia said in a note. “At the moment we’re still in a ‘wait and see’ situation but this week could see the first part of that equation put in place.”
Elsewhere in Asia, other major stock markets closed lower: Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.44 percent to 21,726.28, as shares of index heavyweight Softbank Group declined 1.78 percent, while the Topix shed 0.51 percent to 1,619.23.
The Kospi in South Korea fell 0.52 percent to 2,179.23, with chipmaker SK Hynix seeing its stock slip 0.57 percent.
In Australia, the ASX 200 shed 0.29 percent to 6,199.30, with majority of the sectors lower on the day. The moves Down Under came after the country’s central bank announced it was keeping interest rates steady at 1.50 percent.
The Australian dollar was at $0.7076 following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s interest rate decision after touching an earlier high of $0.7096.
