China's leading appliance retailer shares fall 10 percent

China's leading home appliance retailer, Suning, witnessed a 10-percent slump Thursday for the first time, Security Times reported Friday.

Suning's price slump was not caused by its own performance, but led by the overall downturn of China's stock market, the newspaper said.

The Composite Stock Index on the Shanghai Stock Exchange hit an eight-year low this week after China securities regulators started a new round of reform experiments on split share structure to tackle stock market problems.

Suning was listed on the Chinese stock market on July 21, 2004 with a price of about 30 yuan (3.6 US dollars) per share. As of April 2005, its share price jumped to more than 60 yuan.

Considering the recent bearish market in China, the price surge was surprising, the newspaper said. The average price level of China's stock market was about 5 yuan per share.

During the 2001-2004 period, Suning's net profit jumped six times to 180 million yuan, and is expected to increase another 50 percent in the first half of 2005, the newspaper quoted the company's report as saying.

Source: Xinhua