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1st Ld-Writethru: Regulator assurance drives Chinese shares higher

Xinhua, March 14, 2016 Adjust font size:

Chinese shares rose on Monday, with investor sentiment lifted by regulator assurance that it is premature to consider withdrawing government bailout funds from the market.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.75 percent to close at 2,859.5 points after jumping nearly 3 percent in the morning, and the smaller Shenzhen index closed 3.22 percent higher at 9,665.13 points.

Total turnover on the two bourses expanded to 503.99 billion yuan (77.54 billion U.S. dollars) from Friday's 304.11 billion yuan.

The ChiNext Index, which tracks China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, soared 4.56 percent to close at 2,023.13 points.

Sentiment was helped by comments on Saturday from Liu Shiyu, the newly appointed chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Liu told reporters that China's shift toward a registration system for initial public offerings (IPOs) would "take a relatively long time," and "it's too early to talk about" the exit of government bailout funds.

Software and medical equipment shares led the gains. Shandong Inspur Software Co. jumped by the daily limit of 10 percent to close at 28.9 yuan. Shanghai Runda Medical Technology Co. climbed 9.7 percent.

Shares related to artificial intelligence were among the big gainers. Beijing NetPosa Technologies Co., a security system service provider, jumped by the daily limit of 10 percent to end at 27.39 yuan.

Bucking the trend, bank shares closed broadly lower. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest lender by market value, dipped 0.92 percent to close at 4.3 yuan. China Merchants Bank ended at 15.7 yuan, down 0.25 percent. Endi