HK stocks rise following U.S. stocks' rally

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis　

HONG KONG, Dec. 3 (Chinese media) -- A rally on Wall Street overnight sent Hong Kong shares higher Wednesday, but weakness in the property sector due to concerns about the domestic real estate market pared gains.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 182.81 points, or 1.4 percent, to 13,588.66, after trading between 13,573.43 and 13,778.05 during the session.

Turnover dropped to 37.97 billion HK dollars (4.90 billion U.S. dollars) from Tuesday's 38.50 billion HK dollars (4.97 billion U.S. dollars).

Traders said they believe investors were mostly cautious because the overall market outlook remains hazy.

Index heavyweight HSBC rose 1.7 percent to 80.35 HK dollars, while mainland wireless operator China Mobile jumped 2.5 percent to 72.05 HK dollars.

The property sub-index fell 3.5 percent. Cheung Kong dropped 2.7 percent to 67.80 HK dollars, while Sun Hung Kai Properties tumbled 6 percent to 55.25 HK dollars. Hang Lung Properties was down 5.8 percent at 14.42 HK dollars.

Conglomerate Citic Pacific fell sharply after resuming trade Wednesday, as it disclosed larger losses from its foreign-exchange contracts due to weakness in the Australian dollar. Citic Pacific had the sharpest losses among blue chips, tumbling nearly 8 percent to 5.59 HK dollars.

Strength in mainland shares lent support to Hong Kong's H-share index, which outperformed the blue-chip index's gains. The H-share index rose 3.3 percent to 7,232.54 on a 4 percent rise in the Shanghai Composite and a 3.9 percent jump in the Shenzhen Composite. China power producers and infrastructure companies led gains in Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies.

Datang Power jumped 11.5 percent to 3.77 HK dollars and Huaneng Power rose 9.7 percent to 5.08 HK dollars. China Railway rose 4.1 percent to 5.10 HK dollars, while China Coal gained 6.6 percent to4.72 HK dollars on stable coal prices. (7.7435 HK dollars = 1 U.S. dollar)