Asian shares buoyed after Xi remarks on opening up

Those measures, which Xi brought up in his speech at the Boao Forum for Asia, included lowering import tariffs for autos and other products, as well as enforcing legal intellectual property of foreign firms.

Stocks in the region climbed and the dollar strengthened against the yen on the back of those remarks. U.S. stock futures also edged up amid improved investor confidence.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 advanced 1.08 percent after beginning the day in negative territory. South Korea’s Kospi index, meanwhile, erased earlier losses to edge up by 0.25 percent.

Elsewhere, China markets traded mostly higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.9 percent after its tentative open this morning. On the mainland, the Shanghai composite tacked on 0.48 percent and the Shenzhen composite was off by 0.05 percent.

Down Under, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7 percent.

Dow Jones industrial average futures were higher by 286 points in late Asia morning trade.

“The market is reacting positively to the speech and many points [Xi] highlighted in the speech were actually well anticipated by many of the domestic observers here in China,” Hao Hong, chief strategist at Bank of Communications International, told CNBC’s “Street Signs.” He pointed to better market access and the lifting of foreign ownership caps as examples of those measures.

Markets in the region had traded mixed ahead of Xi’s speech, which had been anticipated amid heightened U.S.-China trade tensions in recent weeks.

Investors had been on edge over the possibility of a trade war happening, although those concerns eased slightly in the last session.

Against the yen, the dollar firmed to trade at 107.15 by 10:35 a.m. HK/SIN, compared to levels around the 106.9 handle seen before Xi’s speech. Meanwhile, the dollar index firmed to trade at 89.920.