Hong Kong shares soar 9% on China pledge to support economy

TOKYO (AP) — Hong Kong’s share benchmark, the Hang Seng index, soared 9% on Wednesday after a senior Chinese official said Beijing would provide more support for the slowing Chinese economy.

The surge was a reprieve from recent heavy selling of Chinese technology companies and other pressures that had taken the Hang Seng to six-year lows.

Officials at a Cabinet meeting in Beijing promised to “invigorate the economy” with “supporting measures” for the struggling real estate and other steps, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

At the meeting led by Vice Premier Liu He, President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser, Cabinet officials called on government agencies to issue other policies that are “favorable to the market,” Xinhua said.

It also said that talks between Chinese and U.S. regulators on resolving a dispute over rules governing foreign companies listed on U.S. markets had made progress.

The Hang Seng gained 9% to 20,079.61. The Shanghai Composite index added 3.5% to 3,170.71.

E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding's shares jumped 23.6%. Tencent Holdings, operator of the popular WeChat message service, surged 23% and livestreaming site Kuaishou Technology added 31.4%.

Various factors contributed to the rally, including comments by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggesting there was still some reason to be optimistic negotiations might yet yield an agreement with the Russian government.

Yet, Russia escalated its bombardment of the Ukrainian capital and launched new assaults on the port city of Mariupol, making bloody advances on the ground Wednesday as Zelenskyy prepared to make a direct appeal for more help in a rare speech by a foreign leader to the U.S. Congress.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.6% to finish at 25,762.01. Australia’s...