* Primark owner surges on plans to reopen England stores
* Standard Chartered, HSBC gain
* Sino-U.S. tensions take the backseat
* UK retail opening in focus
(Adds details, updates to close)
By Sagarika Jaisinghani and Ambar Warrick
June 1 (Reuters) - London-listed shares ended higher on
Monday as markets took heart from a scaling back of coronavirus
restrictions, with consumer stocks among the best performers.
Associated British Foods jumped 8% after its fashion
brand Primark outlined plans to reopen all 153 of its stores in
England on June 15.
The stock was among the best performers on the blue-chip
FTSE 100 index, which added about 1.5% for the day.
The domestically-sensitive mid-cap index was up
1.4%, propped up by consumer discretionary stocks on hopes that
the UK economy would rebound.
Both the bluechip and the midcap indexes had ended May on a
downbeat note on fears of a strong U.S. response to China's move
to impose a national security law in Hong Kong.
But global equity markets rallied on Monday as U.S.
President Donald Trump made no mention of pulling out of the
Phase 1 trade deal while saying his administration would begin
the process of eliminating special treatment for Hong Kong.
"Re-opening optimism reigns supreme as markets have
temporarily shelved the U.S.-China trade war escalation
playbooks in favour of the bullish-for-market re-opening
scripts," said Stephen Innes, markets strategist at Axicorp.
Shares of Standard Chartered PLC and HSBC
- banks with substantial operations in Hong Kong - rose about
8.7% and 2.6% respectively.
The FTSE 100 has recovered about 26% since crashing to an
eight-year low in March, with battered travel and
mining stocks posting some of the sharpest gains.
AstraZeneca rose 1.4% after its and U.S. drugmaker
Merck & Co Inc's cancer drug received a positive
recommendation from the European Medicines Agency as a
maintenance treatment for a form of pancreatic cancer.
Fashion brand Ted Baker ended higher after it said
it would raise 95 million pounds ($117.84 million) through a
stock issue to help it ride out the coronavirus crisis, after
reporting a loss of 79.9 million pounds for the year to January.
(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bengaluru; Editing by
Arun Koyyur and Andrew Heavens)
