Solar Power Stocks Advance in Hong Kong as China Announces New Subsidies

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-03/solar-power-stocks-advance-in-hong-kong-as-china-announces-new-subsidies.html

Solargiga Energy Holdings Ltd. led solar power shares higher in Hong Kong trading after the Chinese government said it would introduce new subsidies to further stimulate use of the cleaner form of energy.

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The government measures came as officials from China and the U.S. meet in Cancun, Mexico, for the latest round of United Nations-led talks aimed at curbing global warming. China will subsidize half of the bidding contract prices for key solar equipment and create 13 industry zones as models for solar- energy applications, Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

“These subsidies don’t seem to be huge, but they’ve been viewed as positive news by the market,” Dennis Lam, an analyst at DBS Vickers Hong Kong Ltd., said by telephone. “In the past few weeks solar stocks have been overlooked in Hong Kong, and this news has shined the spotlight on them once again.”

China may increase its capacity to generate electricity from sunlight to 2,000 megawatts by 2011 and to 20,000 megawatts by 2020, Cui Rongqiang, head of the Shanghai Solar Energy Society, said last year. About 80 percent of the nation’s power plants currently run on coal.

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