HK Stock Market Move | Lithium battery concept stocks decline; Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment (00470) falls over 10%, Ganfeng Lithium Group (01772) drops another 3%.

Lithium battery concept stocks collectively declined. As of press time, Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment (00470) fell 10.63% to HK$23.88; Jiangsu Lopal Tech. Group (02465) dropped 5.62% to HK$7.9; Ganfeng Lithium Group (01772) declined 3.51% to HK$26.98; Tianqi Lithium Corporation (09696) fell 3.24% to HK$25.08; Contemporary Amperex Technology (03750) dropped 2.79% to HK$481. On the news front, the Ministry of Finance's official website showed on October 12 that the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration issued an announcement on adjusting the export tax rebate policy for certain products. Among them, the VAT export tax rebate rate for new energy vehicles was lowered from 13% to 9%. It is worth noting that, from the transmission path perspective, this export tax rebate rate cut will directly increase the costs of new energy vehicle exporters, compress profit margins, and may lead export enterprises to reduce production or relocate capacity outward, thereby weakening procurement demand for upstream lithium batteries and lithium carbonate. On October 12, the main lithium carbonate futures contract closed down 11.79% at 104,740 yuan/ton, falling below the 110,000 yuan mark and hitting a new low for the year, with further declines during today's session. Goldman Sachs' global metals and mining research team recently forecast that the global lithium market will shift from a supply shortage of 404,000 tons in 2026 to a supply surplus of 444,000 tons in 2028, and predicted that China's average spot price of lithium carbonate will drop to about 100,000 yuan/ton in 2027 and further to about 84,000 yuan/ton in 2028, a decline of about 42% from the forecast average price for 2026.