China shares fall on economy worries, Sinopec leads Hong Kong's drop
By Chen Yixin and Donny Kwok
SHANGHAI/HONG KONG, Sept 15 (Reuters) - China shares fell early Monday on worries rooted in a slew of weaker-than-expected economic data, while Sinopec Corp led a bigger slide in the Hong Kong market.
The CSI300 of the leading Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listings declined 0.5 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.2 percent at 2,327.60 points.
Over the weekend, China released a data batch that showed softness in China's factory output, retail sales and urban investment, which added to concerns about the health of the world's second-largest economy.
"The weak data adds great pressure to the market today," said Du Changchun, an analyst at Southeast Securities in Shanghai.
"But investors have high expectations of policy implementation and China's reform, which will not allow the market to drop too much."
Banking shares were weak on Monday, with Bank of Ningbo Co Ping An Bank Co declining by 1.1 both declining 1.1 percent.
Shares in Asia's top oil refiner Sinopec Corp eased 1.1 percent by midday in Shanghai's market and 5.4 percent in Hong Kong after the company said it plans to sell a 107.1 billion yuan ($17.5 billion) stake in its retail unit.
China Life Insurance and a consortium including People's Insurance Group of China Co Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd are each taking 10 billion yuan stakes in the Sinopec's $17.5 billion deal.
HONG KONG FALLS
At midday, the Hang Seng Index was down 0.8 percent at 24,392.62 points and appeared on track for a sixth straight daily loss, while the China Enterprises Index comprising the top Chinese listings in Hong Kong was off 1.6 percent.
"People found the (Sinopec) deal a little bit of disappointment as it ended up most of investors were state-owned enterprises," said Alex Wong, an asset management director at Hong Kong-based Ample Finance Group. "Apart from Tencent, it didn't seem to attract many other private enterprises."
"We don't see any value-add on this structural changes, and people unloaded their shares after waiting for such a long time," Wong said, adding that people didn't see the major changes they expected.
Shares of Yizheng Chemical Fibre soared more than 70 percent after its parent took a step to restructure the loss-making unit in an asset swap. (Editing by Richard Borsuk)
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