China's blue-chip index closes at 8-month high

China stocks extended gains into a third session on Tuesday, with the blue-chip index posting an eight-month closing high, boosted by an interim China-US trade deal which helped temper a key external risk to its financial markets. The blue-chip CSI300 index rose 1.4%, to 4,041.80, the highest close since April 19, while the Shanghai Composite Index rallied 1.3% to 3,022.42.

The "phase one" trade deal between Washington and Beijing has been "absolutely completed," a top White House adviser said on Monday, adding that US exports to China would double under the agreement.

The deal announced on Friday will reduce some US tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for increased Chinese purchases of US agricultural, manufactured and energy products by some $200 billion over the next two years.

Sentiment was also aided by a host of recent data pointing to resilience in the world's second-largest economy. In a fresh sign that Beijing will continue to support the economy with fiscal stimulus, the state planner said on Tuesday it approved eight fixed-asset investment projects in November worth a combined 7.1 billion yuan.

Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.93%, while Japan's Nikkei index was up 0.47%. The yuan was quoted at 7.0016 per US dollar, 0.1% weaker than the previous close of 6.9949. So far this year, the Shanghai stock index is up 19.67%, while China's H-share index is up 6.5%. Shanghai stocks have risen 3.91% this month.

About 29.30 billion shares have traded so far on the Shanghai exchange, roughly 197.8% of the market's 30-day moving average of 14.82 billion shares a day. The volume traded was 21.19 billion as of the last full trading day. As of 07:21 GMT, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 26.82% over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.