Mainland ‍stocks closed slightly higher on Tuesday, with gains in the communications sector outweighing losses in property shares, as trading gradually thinned ahead of the long Lunar New Year holiday.

In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index ended up almost 156 points, or 0.58 percent, at 27,183. The China enterprises index was up 72 points, or 0.81 percent, at 9,242 while the tech index was up 33 points, or 0.62 percent, at 5,451.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ended up just over five points, or 0.13 percent, at 4,128.

The Shenzhen Component Index closed just over two points, or 0.02 percent, higher at 14,210 while the ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 12 points, or 0.37 percent, to close at 3,320.

The combined turnover of the Shanghai and Shenzhen indexes amounted to nearly 2.11 trillion yuan, down from 2.25 trillion yuan on Monday.

China's onshore media stocks surged on excitement over ByteDance's latest AI video-generation model, with the CSI media sub-index closing up 4.2 percent and the CSI film and TV sub-index surging 9.3 percent.

Meanwhile, property shares fell, with ‍the CSI real estate sub-index losing about 2 percent.

"We sense a notable pick-up ⁠in interest in the chemicals sectors and in the A-share semi-cap equipment sector, which ‍is benefiting from the domestic AI upcycle," said James Wang, head of China strategy at UBS Investment Bank Research.

Trading is expected to be thin this week ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which is the biggest festival in China. The week-long holiday ‌runs from February 15 to 23 this year.

President Xi Jinping on Monday stressed self-reliance and strength in science and technology, hailing it as the "key" in building China into a great modern socialist country, Xinhua news agency reported.

Separately, investors will watch upcoming economic data, including China's January credit lending figures and US employment and consumer price reports, for possible market impact. (Reuters & Xinhua)