Asia: Stocks higher as investors expect further policy support in China

Asian stocks were up on Monday, as markets in the region were unaffected by fears in Europe over the meeting between Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, with the two expected to discuss the Greek debt crisis.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.95% as investors expected further stimulus into the second biggest economy in the world.

However, Capital Economics analysts said they expect Chinese gross domestic product for the first quarter of the 2015 to slip below 7%.

“We expect further policy support and are not too concerned about the outlook given how much room policymakers still have for manoeuvre," chief Asia economist Mark Williams said.

“Nonetheless, the weak data mean that jitters over a possible hard landing won’t go away.”

Following Shanghai’s lead, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng also rose 0.49%.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was up 0.99% after Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said that inflation was slowing on low oil prices but the long term rising trend for consumer prices remains intact.

The dollar was at ¥119.89, down from ¥120.11 on Friday.

Australia’s ASX fell 0.32% after opening at nearly 6,000 points, the highest level since 2008.

In corporate news, Chinese oil and gas company Sinopec fell 1.9% as it reported a net loss of ¥5.3bn during the last quarter from a net profit of ¥13.8bn same time last year.

Asian commodities firm Noble Group gained 4% after revealing on Monday it had initiated legal proceedings against a credit analyst it employed for spreading false information about the company.

Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai jumped 20.7% following news that its Alzheimer experimental drug has shown progress.

Australian mining company Rio Tinto fell 0.65% as it forecasts a 31% fall in net profit for the full-year.