1st LD-Writethru: Chinese shares close lower Friday
Xinhua, September 9, 2016 Adjust font size:
China stocks closed lower on Friday with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 0.55 percent to close at 3,078.85 points.
The Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.81 percent lower at 10,762.79 points. The ChiNext Index, tracking China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, lost 0.92 percent to close at 2,202.97 points.
Combined turnover on the two bourses stood at 481.2 billion yuan (72.9 billion U.S. dollars), up from 449.1 billion yuan the previous trading day.
Nearly 2,000 shares lost on the two bourses with newly listed companies and medical equipment losing most.
China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, grew 1.3 percent year on year in August, down from July's 1.8 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Friday.
August inflation was the slowest since October 2015 and marked a fourth consecutive monthly drop from 2.3 percent in April, when the CPI reached its highest level since July 2014.
Meanwhile, China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, dropped 0.8 percent year on year in August, easing from the 1.7-percent decline registered in July, NBS data also showed.
China's slower consumer price inflation and narrower decline in producer prices in August provided fresh evidence of a steadying economy, according to experts. Endi