EEM•** Beijing seeks opinions on planned China-US tariff cuts on $30 billion in trade
** Vietnam reaffirms trade talks, urges US to conclude trade investigation
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(Reporting by Utkarsh Hathi in Bengaluru; Editing by Joe Bavier)
Most emerging-market stocks gained on Thursday, as a rally in Asian tech shares cushioned the impact of rising oil prices, while currencies traded mixed against a steady dollar.
Chipmakers in Asia extended gains after search giant Google's parent Alphabet GOOGL.O increased its capex forecast following strong cloud-computing growth, while automaker Tesla TSLA.O said spending will grow for the next two or three years. Shares of Alphabet and Tesla were down 3.9% and 5.7%, respectively in premarket trading on Wall Street.
"Investors need evidence that heavy investment is translating into revenue or credible future returns," said Geoff Yu, senior EMEA market strategist at BNY.
South Korea's KOSPI .KS11, which includes semiconductor makers such as SK Hynix 000660.KS and Samsung 005930.KS, surged 4.4%. The benchmark has seen extreme volatility in recent weeks due to leveraged bets on AI-related stocks.
Taiwan's tech-heavy benchmark .TWII was muted, while Chinese equities .CSI300 edged 0.2% higher.
Supporting sentiment, advance estimates from the Bank of Korea showed South Korea's economy expanded faster than expected in the second quarter, helped by strong semiconductor demand and supply constraints.
The broader MSCI global EM stocks index .MSCIEF gained 1.2%, while the currencies gauge .MIEM00000CUS edged 0.2% higher.
In emerging Europe, Hungarian equities .BUX declined 0.5% after three consecutive sessions of gains, while the energy-laden Romanian benchmark .BETI gained 0.3%. Polish stocks .WIG were flat.
Oil prices climbed 4% on Thursday, hovering near a six-week high after Yemen's Houthi militia said it attacked two Saudi oil tankers, and the Saudi news agency confirmed one of the vessels was ablaze after an assault in the Red Sea. O/R
Attention later in the day will turn to interest-rate decisions in Turkey and South Africa, as investors assess the inflationary risks posed by rising energy prices.
Yu added that higher crude prices were pushing governments and central banks back into defence mode even without a fresh coordinated release of oil stocks.
South Africa's rand ZAR= traded 0.2% lower, while its stocks .JTOPI slipped 0.8%, tracking precious metal prices. Hotter-than-expected inflation data on Wednesday has raised bets for a bigger-than-expected rate hike from its central bank later in the day.
Turkey's lira was little changed ahead of its interest rate decision.
Most emerging European currencies lost ground against the euro, with the Hungarian forint HUF= slipping 0.4%, the most among its peers.
