Fu Chenghao/Shanghai Daily news

China stocks inched up yesterday bolstered by a senior official's remark about improving market quality. Some large caps, however, declined after being victims of profit taking, dealers said.
The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks yuan-denominated A shares and foreign-currency B shares, added 0.44 percent to 1,100.05. The A-share Index gained 0.44 percent to 1,156.45 while the B-share Index put on 0.33 percent to 60.33.
The Shenzhen Composite Index ended up 0.59 percent at 269.1.
Shang Fulin, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, reiterated that it's an "urgent and crucial task" to improve the quality of listed firms, the China Securities Journal reported.
Some analysts still predicted poor performance in the short run.
"I'm not optimistic over market performance next year if there's no good news on policies," said Zhang Qi, a Haitong Securities Co analyst.
"As usual, we see less fund inflows towards the end of the year while current market confidence was also clouded on concern of even worse (earnings)  results for the last quarter," Zhang added.
China Merchants Bank Co climbed 0.64 percent to 6.26 yuan (77 US cents) after news reports said the nation's biggest listed lender plans to launch an initial public offering in Hong Kong in the second half of next year to raise more than HK$10 billion (US$1.28 billion).
Shenyang Jinshan Thermoelectric Co jumped 7.13 percent to 5.41 yuan after slumping some 30 percent since it completed its share reform and resumed trading on October 31.
Among decliners, China Southern Airlines Co, the nation's No. 1 carrier by fleet, shed 0.41 percent to 2.43 yuan while China United Telecommunications Corp dropped 0.77 percent to 2.58 yuan.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, lost 0.25 percent to 4.04 yuan after jumping 0.75 percent on Thursday.
Qilu Petrochemical Co, a unit of Sinopec, the top Asian refiner, shed 1.36 percent to close at 7.25 yuan.
Its share price surged 4.85 percent on Thursday on news that Sinopec would privatize Hong Kong-listed Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Co, raising speculation Sinopec would do the same for other subsidiaries.