China may close its stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shen-zhen for the first time in their 13-year history to disperse some of China's 69 million stock investors from crowded trading halls amid the worst outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus in the world.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission is in talks with officials from the two exchanges about extending a May 1 to 9 trading halt for another week, resuming trading on May 19, said Wang Qingsong, listing manager of the Shanghai exchange.
"Retail investors are more susceptible to the virus because they gather in trading halls every day," said Yao Maogong, a trading manager at Shanghai Securities Co.
"They are not like foreign investors, who trade electronically." Yao said.
Closing Asia's second-biggest capital market is part of a government campaign to scatter the world's biggest population from public places after 3,106 have taken ill with SARS and 139 have died.
China's US$500 billion stock markets are popular with domestic investors in a country with a near record US$1.1 trillion in household savings and few investment choices.
The markets have three of the world's 20 best-performing stock indexes this year. The Shenzhen B-share index, which tracks Hong Kong dollar-denominated stocks, is the eighth-best performer, up 2.5 percent today and almost 16 percent this year. The benchmark Shanghai A-share index rose 3.4 percent.
The complete trading halt would be the first for non-holiday reasons since the exchanges were reopened in 1990 after the Cultural Revolution.
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