Stocks firmly up at the end of the week

Shanghai stocks rose on Friday, led by gains in pharmaceutical enterprises and financial shares.

The Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.49 percent to close at 2,897.43 points. For the week, the gauge jumped 2.61 percent.

Shares of financial firms rose after the People's Bank of China issued a plan on the development of fintech in three years to promote high-quality development in the financial sector, according to a statement released on Thursday on its website.

According to the plan, the country will construct the framework of fintech development, further boost the applications of fintech and realize the deep integration and coordinated development of technology and finance by 2021.

Investor sentiment was also lifted after the central bank pumped cash into the financial system through open market operations to maintain liquidity in the market on Friday. The PBOC conducted 80 billion yuan (US$11.34 billion) of seven-day reverse repos. The interest rate for the operation remained at 2.55 percent.

China Merchants Bank Co Ltd added 2.63 percent to 36.27 yuan and Shanghai Greencourt Investment Group Co Ltd added 4.62 percent to 5.66 yuan.