Southeast Asian stock markets ended higher on Wednesday, as optimism swept across broader Asia after upbeat comments from US President Donald Trump on reaching a trade deal with China allayed trade conflict worries between Washington and Beijing. Trump in an interview to Reuters said talks were taking place with Beijing by phone and he would not raise tariffs on Chinese imports until he was sure about a deal.
Sentiment improved after Trump added that he would intervene in the Justice Department's case against the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies. Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, was granted bail by a Canadian court on Tuesday, 10 days after her arrest in Vancouver. The arrest had turned out to be another hurdle to the resolution of a Sino-US trade war.
This boosted MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, which rose 0.15 percent after hitting a nearly three-week low on Tuesday. Shares in Singapore - biggest gainer in the region - closed 1.3 percent higher, snapping their sixth straight sessions of declines.
In Malaysia, the benchmark index posted its first day of gains after a six-session losing streak. The country's factory production index rose 4.2 percent in October from a year earlier. The Philippine index recovered to trade higher along with its peers in the region.
Vietnam shares propped up on the back of financial stocks, with Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam and Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam leading the gains.
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