1st LD-Writethru: Chinese shares rise for 6th day

BEIJING, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- China's major stock indices rose for a sixth consecutive trading day Friday to the highest level since Nov. 22, led by strong performance in the real estate sector.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.18 percent to end at 3,391.75 points. The Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.01 percent higher at 11,342.85 points

Combined turnover on the two bourses stood at 499 billion yuan (76.9 billion U.S. dollars), up from 496 billion yuan the previous day.

The real estate sector was the strongest during Friday trading, with the sub-index up 2.47 percent.

Poly Real Estate Group surged 5.38 percent to close at 15.29 yuan per share and Beijing Vantone Real Estate rose 5.06 percent to close at 4.36 yuan.

China Evergrande Group, one of China's largest developers, said that its contracted property sales rose 34.2 percent to 500.96 billion yuan in 2017.

Total floor area of property sold last year stood at 50.3 million square meters, up 19.2 percent from 2016.

The strong growth came amid slowing growth in the country's overall property sales area, which increased by 7.9 percent year on year in the first 11 months of 2017, down from 24.3 percent for the same period of 2016.

Last year, the housing market cooled as local governments toughened measures to rein in property speculation, especially in major cities.

The ChiNext Index, China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, closed 0.38 percent higher at 1,801.42 points Friday. Enditem