Two sessions fail to enthuse stocks

The roar of the so-called "two sessions" boom, eagerly anticipated by investors ahead of the country's most important annual meetings of the legislature early this month, was pretty much drowned out by the wail of the global financial crisis and economic recession that is showing no sign of getting better.

Indeed, the Chinese stock market had performed well in 10 of the past 14 years during the twin sessions of the legislative National People's Congress (NPC) and the advisory Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

With statistics on their side, analysts and individual investors alike had pinned high hopes on this year's two sessions as the Chinese economy performed relatively better than most of the developed countries, which have been trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of bank failures and government bailouts.