BIZCHINA / Center
Chinese pour savings deposits into stock market
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-05-13 09:19
More than 70 billion yuan (9.1 billion U.S. dollars) was transferred from
savings accounts in Shanghai to stock trading accounts in the first four
months of this year, the Shanghai branch of the People's Bank of China
estimated on Saturday.
In April alone, RMB-denominated savings deposits with Chinese banking
institutions decreased by 8.5 billion yuan (1.1 billion U.S. dollars).
"Given the continuous bullish stock market, the diversion of savings
deposits will persist for a good while yet," said an official with the
Shanghai branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Shanghai is far from being an exception. The craze has challenged banking
service facilities in some areas.
In Changsha, capital city of central China's Hunan Province, a lady
surnamed Wei found tens of thousands of yuan of her money deposited at a
local outlet of the China Construction Bank failed to be transferred when
she was in a hurry to buy in stocks at around 9:00 a.m. on April 30, the
last trading day before the week-long May holiday. Her money was safe but
the bank's computer crashed due to an overload of transfer requests.
A similar cases occurred again with the China Construction Bank Changsha
branch on May 8, the first trading day after the holiday. Company sources
said the bank is testing new computer servers with a larger operating
capacity.
The heavy inflow of funds, strong corporate profits, and double-digit
economic growth have helped drive up the key Shanghai index by more than
51 percent this year after it soared 130 percent last year.
In the first trading week after the May Day holiday, the combined market
value of the two bourses on the Chinese mainland swelled by 4.97 percent
from April 30 to 16.89 trillion yuan (2.2 trillion U.S. dollars).
Investors dived into the robust capital market. It is reported that on
May 8, the first trading day after the weeklong holiday, the two bourses
recorded the opening of 421,831 new stock trading accounts, including
368,400 accounts for the A-share market. This brought the total number of
stock trading accounts on the two exchanges to 94.37 million.
According to a monthly report jointly produced by Shanghai Securities
Journal and Shenyin Wanguo Securities, in April alone a record 250
billion yuan (32.5 billion U.S. dollars) was added to the capital ready
for stock trading, bringing the total on the A-share market to 980
billion yuan (127.3 billion U.S dollars).
The investment spree has aroused concern from the industry watchdog.
In a notice released on Friday, China Securities Regulatory Commission
(CSRC) urged stock exchanges, securities dealers and related authorities
to educate investors about the risks of stock market investment.
These institutions must make investors understand that stock markets are
risky and they should be cautious in entering the market, especially
those who use all their savings or pawn their apartments for loans to
invest in stocks, the notice said.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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