Asia close: Chinese stocks outperform as officials signal policy support

Asia Pacific stocks stabilised at the end of the week with investors keeping their cards close to their chests ahead of the release of the July U.S. non-farm payrolls numbers and heading into the weekend.

Japan's Nikkei-225 edged up 0.1% to 32,192.75 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.62% to 19,540.47.

In the background, dollar/yen was up by 0.08% at 142.69 while against the yuan it rose 0.17% to 7.1818.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond meanwhile was one basis point lower to 0.646%.

Helping Chinese stocks to outperform again, on Friday, officials from multiple departments at China's central bank said at a briefing that they would support economic growth in the back half of 2023, Dow Jones Newswires reported.