January 02, 2023: -Hong Kong-listed shares of China’s significant cemeteries operator and funeral service increased to their highest level over a year as the country struggles with a wave of Covid infections.

Fu Shou Yuan International Group stock hit a 2022 high at 7.04 Hong Kong dollars a share as of Friday’s close, having surged about 80% in two months as the government suddenly ended most of its Covid control measures and experience case numbers surged.

Despite widespread reporting of a spike in Covid deaths straining hospitals and funeral homes, China’s official Covid death toll remains low. Health support re-defined Covid deaths, including only people who die from pneumonia or respiratory failure, contrasting with most other countries, which count any death where Covid was a factor.

Separately, China’s National Health Commission announced that it would halt the publication of daily infection numbers over Christmas weekend.

The stock had seen refusal from April 2021 into October, when China widely tightened its virus restrictions, after which concluded the National Party Congress with an ambiguous stance on continuing its zero-Covid policy.

With a market cap of over $2 billion, the company debuted in 2013 with backing from the Carlyle Group and hedge fund company Farallon Investors.

Carlyle co-founder William Conway had visited Fu Shou Yuan’s principal cemetery in Shanghai with a group of executives in December 2010 before he agreed to purchase $25 million worth of shares before the company went public.