SHANGHAI, May 26: China’s education ministry has advised college students trying to cash in on the nation’s booming stock market to stay away, state media has reported. “It’s inappropriate for college students to invest in stocks because their basic task is to study and establish the foundation for a career,” Xinhua quoted ministry spokesman Wang Xuming as saying late Friday.

“It costs them precious time and energy,” Wang said, adding that it was aware that many students had joined China’s stocks frenzy.

Wang said students could not afford to take on the tremendous financial risks involved in playing the stock market, especially as most of them were still supported by their parents.

Students are lining up with people from all segments of Chinese society seeking to profit from the red-hot stock market which has tripled in value since January 2006.

The number of new trading accounts in China rocketed to five million in the first quarter of this year, compared with 3.08 million last year alone.

The report gave no figures on how many of China’s 17m university students were investing.

The education ministry was the latest to add its voice to a growing chorus warning that punters were ignoring the dangers of investing.

Officials both in China and abroad have repeatedly cautioned investors they could lose everything if the bubble were to pop.—AFP