By DailyForex.com
With Asian economies continuing to grow and with the U.S. Federal Reserve reducing its stimulus measures, China’s Premier Li Keqiang said yesterday that the “bottom line” for China’s gross domestic product this year is 7 percent and that the nation can’t let growth go below that. Li Keqiang’s announcement sent prices zooming up 3 per cent, extending Asian stocks’ two month’s high.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.9 percent to 137.24 as of 12:18 p.m. in Tokyo, with almost four stocks rising for each that fell. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.2 percent after the gauge rose 0.2 percent to a record in New York yesterday.
Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. (5401) climbed 3 percent in Tokyo after the Nikkei newspaper reported the world’s biggest steelmaker agreed to a 10 percent price increase with Toyota Motor Corp. Yanzhou Coal Mining Co., China’s fourth-largest producer of the fuel, added 3.8 percent in Hong Kong after saying its chairman and vice chairman resigned. ZTE Corp., China’s No. 2 maker of equipment for phone networks, jumped 17 percent after reporting higher first-half earnings.
Japan’s Topix index added 0.4 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average climbed 0.8 percent. South Korea’s Kospi index jumped 1.2 percent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 0.3 percent. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index advanced 0.6 percent, Taiwan’s Taiex Index (TWSE) gained 1.4 percent and Singapore’s Straits Times Index increased 0.4 percent.