Jet fuel accounted for about 40 percent of Chinese airlines' costs in 2007, according to annual reports.
Financial shares in the banking and real estate sectors followed the market down today.
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the nation's largest lender and second-biggest component in the market, lost 0.98 percent to 5.07 yuan while Bank of Beijing, part-owned by ING Groep NV, shed 3.77 percent to 12.51 yuan.
Bank of Beijing said yesterday that it won regulatory approval to buy 20 percent of Langfang City Commercial Bank for 127.5 million yuan.
China Vanke, the nation's biggest developer, declined 3.41 percent to 8.50 yuan. Beijing North Star Co, the property arm of Beijing's city government, tumbled 7.26 percent to 6.77 yuan. Poly Real Estate slumped 7.42 percent to 15.60 yuan.
Beijing North Star said first-half profit fell 56 percent to 149.7 million yuan based on international accounting standards, according to a Shanghai Stock Exchange statement yesterday. Sales were little changed at 1.49 billion yuan.
China's central bank this year ordered lenders to set aside a record amount in reserves to tame rising consumer prices after increasing interest rates six times in 2007. Inflation climbed to 7.9 percent in the first half of this year, compared with 4.8 percent for all of 2007, government figures show.
Elsewhere, Jinzhou Port Co, the port operator in northeastern China, slipped 5.16 percent to 6.43 yuan. The company said yesterday that its profit may more than double in the first nine months of the year from a year earlier because fees and cargo volume increased, according to a Shanghai Stock Exchange statement yesterday. First-half net income more than doubled from a year earlier to 86.6 million yuan, it said.
Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery Co buckled 3.48 percent to 12.75 yuan. Zhenhua, the world's biggest maker of container cranes, said it signed an agreement for a US$177.5 million loan from a group led by France's Credit Agricole and Royal Bank of Scotland, according to a Shanghai Stock Exchange statement yesterday.
(Shanghai Daily July 31, 2008)
