China seeks to steady stocks after tech selloff

Chinese Premier Li Qiang chaired a State Council meeting that called for stronger steps to stabilise China's capital markets after recent stock swings and a technology selloff, the official Xinhua News Agency said Friday.

Shares in Chinese AI chipmakers Moore Threads and MetaX have fallen by around 50 percent over the past six months. Shanghai's tech-focused Star50 index was down around six percent over the same period.

Xinhua said the State Council meeting called for improving mechanisms to stabilise the capital market, enhance the stock market's stability and promote stable development of the capital market.

On Tuesday, net capital inflows into nine exchange-traded funds commonly used by Beijing to support the market reached 120 billion yuan, or $18 billion, a near-record level, according to Bloomberg data. The flows targeted technology stocks in particular.

The Financial Times reported this week that Chinese regulators had told banks to halt company listings in an attempt to boost market liquidity.

Xinhua said Friday's meeting also called for faster progress in six infrastructure areas: water, power, computing, communications, urban underground pipelines and logistics networks.