After days of reeling from the effects of a tit-for-tat trade war, the Asian markets opened higher today with the Shanghai Composite rising 2 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up more than 3.5 per cent while South Korea’s Kopsi rose 3.5 per cent.
The bounce came after the US President Donald Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday and later tweeted that trade talks with Chinese counterpart were “moving along nicely”.
Just had a long and very good conversation with President Xi Jinping of China. We talked about many subjects, with a heavy emphasis on Trade. Those discussions are moving along nicely with meetings being scheduled at the G-20 in Argentina. Also had good discussion on North Korea!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2018
China’s foreign ministry also confirmed that the call between the two leaders was quite positive and that the pair believed they should “enhance trade relations”.
Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, later reported that Trump wants to reach a trade agreement with China at the G20 meeting and that after the call with Xi, he had asked officials to begin drafting possible terms.
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