China's main stock index on Monday broke the 6,000-point mark for the first time.

The Shanghai Composite Index leaped 2.15 percent, or 126.83 points, to end the day at 6030.09 points, with key blue chips such as Sinopec and China United Telecommunications leading the way.

It has taken less than two months for the market to climb another 1,000 points after the key index rose above 5,000 points for the first time on August 23.

Sinopec share prices, the country's largest oil refiner, and China Yangtze Power Co. Ltd surged nearly 10 percent to close at 25.56 yuan and 22.15 yuan respectively. China United Telecommunications rose 9.97 percent to 11.69 yuan.

China's central bank said it would raise the reserve requirement ratio by half a percentage point to 13 percent for commercial banks from October 25, the eighth such move this year, aimed at "checking excessive credit growth."

The latest tightening move, however, seemed to have little effect. The share price of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest lender, rose by 2.75 percent to 7.86 yuan, but the smaller China Merchants Bank fell 1.88 percent to 41.12 yuan.

The smaller Shenzhen market recorded considerable losses, led by weakened real estate shares such as China Vanke, which dropped 4.93 percent to 31.27 yuan.

The Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.24 percent or 46.55 points to close at 19,088.65 points on Monday.

The combined turnover on the two bourses remains high at 272.8 billion yuan (US$36.4 billion), but down from the record 313.6 billion yuan (US$41.8 billion) on the previous trading day.

The Ministry of Finance announced over the weekend that it would issue three batches of special treasury bonds with a total value of 100 billion yuan in the fourth quarter as part of a plan to raise 1.55 trillion yuan to fund the country's new foreign exchange investment firm.

The bonds on sale to the public will help ease liquidity, prevent the economy from overheating and strengthen the macro-control policy, the ministry previously said.

The Hong Kong - and New York - listed China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the country's largest oil producer, plans to initiate its initial public offering in Shanghai during the last ten days of October, and they may start trading on the Shanghai bourse in November, said CNPC president Jiang Jiemin on Monday on the sidelines of the ongoing Party congress.

(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2007)