The combination of China on Friday easing some of its COVID curbs, including shortening by two days quarantine times for close contacts of cases and for inbound travelers and scrapping a penalty on airlines that bring in infected passengers, along with news of a property rescue package is sending Chinese developers stocks on a tear. 

Firstly, the new rules were among the 20 measures examined at the first meeting of the new top leadership body of the ruling Communist Party on Thursday, amid a new push to optimize and improve COVID control policies.  Meanwhile, Beijing has reported the highest number of local Covid cases in more than a year today, reporting 404 new local Covid cases for Sunday.

Nevertheless, the news from Friday of sweeping directives to rescue China's property sector in the strongest signs yet that President Xi Jinping is turning his attention toward shoring up the world’s second-largest economy has sent market higher in the open. 

Bloomberg reported on Friday that financial regulators issued a 16-point plan to boost the real estate market, with measures that range from addressing developers’ liquidity crisis to loosening down-payment requirements for homebuyers, according to people familiar with the matter.

''The move coincided with a publicly announced 20-point playbook from the National Health Commission aimed at reducing the economic and social impact of containing Covid.''

As a consequence, Shares in Hong Kong jumped 593 points or 3.4% to trade at near 6-week highs at 17,912 on Monday, extending strong gains from the previous week. All sectors contributed to the rally, with sharp gains from Country Garden Holdings (34.4%), Longfor Group (24.7%), Country Garden Services (22.1%), and China Merchants (9.3%).

Meanwhile, US President Biden and China President Xi are meeting for the first time since Biden became president in Bali today on the sidelines of the G20 conference.