Hong Kong Stocks Tumble 3.28%
HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s stock market tumbled more than 3% Tuesday after a top Beijing official hinted that his nation’s Communist leadership might abandon its deal ensuring the British colony stays capitalist after its return to China in 1997.
Some local legislators expressed alarm over the remarks by Vice Premier Zhu Rongji on Monday in London. But analysts said foreign investors, keen to use Hong Kong as a gateway to the fast-growing China market, were unlikely to be scared off so easily.
The Hang Seng index, the Asian exchange’s major blue chip barometer and one of Hong Kong’s most sensitive gauges of confidence, initially plunged 248.09 points, close to 4%.
But Hong Kong’s ever watchful bargain-hunters then intervened, and the market stabilized to close down 206.31 points, or 3.28%, at 6,088.52.
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