After more than a month of uncertainty, Chinese share prices rose to a new record high on Thursday following the release of half-year financial reports by listed companies, which showed healthy profits.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.52 percent or 22.49 points to close at 4,346.46 - breaking the previous record of 4,335.96 points set on May 29 - and the Shenzhen Component Index ended on 14,619.74 points, up 1.5 percent.

According to Thursday's China Securities Journal, 89 listed companies that had released their half-year reports by Wednesday witnessed an average increase in net profits from last year of 206 percent.

Although the high figure will not reflect the whole picture of the profits recorded by a total of 1,400-plus listed firms, analysts are upbeat about the combined profit earnings for the whole market this year.

Shares of companies in the property, securities and textile industries performed well. Vanke, China's largest property firm, rose 0.59 percent to 27.41 yuan and CITIC securities leapt 5.12 percent to 66.9 yuan.

Jiangsu Wuzhong, a textile company, rose the 10-percent daily limit to 6.33 yuan and China Garments went up 9.98 percent to 7.16 yuan.

Major banks fell on Thursday, with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China down 1.2 percent to 5.77 yuan and the Bank of China down 0.55 percent to 5.46 yuan.

The combined turnover of the two bourses recovered from 196.3 billion yuan on Wednesday to 209.9 billion yuan on Thursday.

(Xinhua News Agency July 27 2007)