Asia shares turn mixed on Shanghai's ease of zero-Covid controls

Bangkok: Stocks advanced in Europe on Wednesday after a mixed session in Asia, where authorities in Shanghai allowed 4 million people to leave their homes, easing a stringent shutdown that has deepened worries over the slowing Chinese economy. Germany's DAX rose 0.9 per cent to 14,280.77 while the CAC 40 in Paris climbed 1.2 per cent to 6,612.76. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.5 per cent to 7,637.19.

The future for the S&P 500 was unchanged and that for the Dow industrials edged less than 0.1 per cent higher. Markets have powered higher even as the conflict in Ukraine has heated up in recent days. Russia was pounding Ukrainian cities and towns and pouring more troops into the war as it pursued a fresh offensive that seeks to slice the country in half in a battle for control of the country's eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories.

Health officials in Shanghai said a major outbreak of corona virus was "under effective control" in some parts of the city of 25 million, China's business capital and home to its largest port. Almost 12 million people have been allowed to go outdoors following a first round of easing last week.

The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast of Chinese economic growth, to 4.4 per cent from last year's 8.1 per cent, and warned the global flow of industrial goods might be disrupted by zero-Covid controls that confined residents of Shanghai and dozens of other cities to their homes, some for weeks.

In Asian trading, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index gained 0.9 per cent to 27,217.85 while the Kospi in South Korea was almost unchanged at 2,718.69. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong lost 0.4 per cent to 20,944.67 and the Shanghai Composite index slipped 1.4 per cent to 3,174.35 after regulators kept a key interest rate unchanged, foiling hopes for it might be cut to help encourage more lending. In Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 picked up 0.1 per cent to 7,569.20.