China's A-share market reopens on Monday, its first trading day of the Year of the Rat, losing heavily across the board. Photo: cnsphotos

China's stock market had a mixed opening on Tuesday, with the Shanghai Composite Index up 0.41 percent, Shenzhen Component Index down 0.14 percent and the ChiNext stock market down 0.09 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index opened up 1.76 percent. 

Airport, transportation, travel, catering and vaccine shares soared, driven by news of a "90 percent effective" COVID-19 candidate vaccine developed by Fosun, BioNTech and Pfizer, according to analysts.

Pfizer said Tuesday that it plans to apply for emergency authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the use of the COVID-19 candidate vaccine in the third week of November. The company is expected to produce 50 million doses by 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by 2021, media reported.

Chinese conglomerate Fosun has been licensed to exclusively develop and commercialize the jointly developed COVID-19 vaccine products with BioNtech, a vaccine based on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA). 

In a WeChat post late Monday, Fosun chairman Guo Guangchang said he had received news from the two partners that their jointly developed mRNA vaccine was up to 90 percent effective based on early data from a phase three clinical trial, far higher than previous estimates.

Fosun's shares rose to a daily limit of 10 percent on the A-share market after the trading opened, and its Hong Kong shares also rose 15 percent. Fosun resumed trading half an hour after its shares hit daily limit, which rose 8.27 percent immediately, with a transaction of 2.123 billion yuan ($320.9 million). 

The reported 90 percent efficacy has exceeded market expectations. The good news is expected to buoy domestic demand and the recovery of international transportation. Wide-body aircraft capacity is expected to return to normal levels after the pandemic, according to a report by CeITIC Securities released on Tuesday.

The airport shipping sector opened higher on the A-share market, with Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and Shanghai Airport reaching the bid limit. Airline shares opened high including Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Express Airlines.

The Chinese yuan's central parity exchange rate, rose 226 basis points to hit 6.5897 yuan per US dollar on Tuesday, the highest level since June 27, 2018.

"The long-term protection of the vaccine remains to be seen, but I'm not convinced that a vaccine lasts only a few months. The evidence is that more than 51 million confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, but fewer than 100 cases appear to have been reported twice," Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine expert, told the Global Times on Tuesday.