BEIJING, Aug. 1 -- Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index finished up 339 points at 20,573 Friday, after scaling an 11-month high of 20,712 earlier amid strong corporate earnings forecasts and analyst upgrades.

    This figure makes July the fifth winning month for Hong Kong.

    For the whole week, the Hang Seng Index rose 590 points, or 2.96 percent, with day average turnover at 84.7 billion HK dollars.

    Analysts noted the Hong Kong market has been mainly driven by excessive liquidity. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) continued to deal with the money inflows and defend the currency peg by selling more HK dollar on Friday.

    SOUNDBITE: Strategist of First Shanghai Securities, Linus Yip “From the report of HKMA, you can see the report saying the money is still coming into Hong Kong, and it is the major force for the Hong Kong stock market to shoot up further. And of course you can see other things, like, right now you can see some economic indicators or economic figures turning positive, which gives the market (a signal that) the global economy has turned around or is recovering, such kind of expectations stimulate the fund to go into the market and help the market shoot up further.”

    The China Enterprises Index, which represents top locally-listed Chinese mainland stocks, was up 1.1 percent at 12,123.

    HSBC Holdings, a leading blue chip, soared 4.61 percent to end at 77.10 HK dollars.

    Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Hong Kong.

    (Source: XHTV)