THE whimper that ended Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd's meeting in Beijing dragged the Hang Seng Index down 51.78 points to 7,070.61 as foreign investors continued to give the market a wide berth.
In the fifth successive day of losses, action was again sluggish, with early estimates putting turnover at $3.29 billion, up from a corrected figure of $2.95 billion on Thursday.
With the economic problems in China continuing to drive US and other fund managers away from Hongkong, the day belonged to the local investors.
In what some brokers dubbed a perverse reaction, the news that China has given the green light to the first phase of the Central-Wan Chai reclamation scheme, served only to take the market lower.
Other brokers said the news, also emerging from Mr Hurd's meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichan, that the Sino-British talks on extended democracy for Hongkong could drag on for a further two months, served to depress sentiment.
Baring Securities associate director James Slade said: ''We thought that an agreement and a blessing on the go-ahead of the reclamation would have been positive and, in fact, it was the opposite.