Investing.com - Asian stocks declined in afternoon trade on Wednesday even after China expressed confidence that it could reach a trade deal with the U.S.
Following a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Saturday, the U.S. and China agreed to halt the planned increase in tariffs to 25% from 10% on Chinese imports. However, the remaining details of what was agreed at the dinner meeting were unclear.
China’s Ministry of Commerce released its first official statement on the meeting on Wednesday and said the trade meeting with the U.S. was “very successful”, but did not provide any further details on the outcome of the meeting.
The Ministry added that Beijing would begin to implement specific issues already agreed upon, as both sides "actively promote the work of negotiations within 90 days in accordance with a clear timetable and road map".
"We are confident in implementation," it said, calling the latest bilateral talks "very successful".
An earlier report by the Washington Post claimed that there are "significant differences" between the two countries’ versions of what was agreed upon at the dinner.
The Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Component fell 0.6% and 0.3% respectively by 1:50 AM ET (06:50 GMT). Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index traded 1.7% lower.
China’s November services PMI came in at a five-year high of 53.8, data on Wednesday showed, beating the forecasted 50.8 by a significant margin.
Meanwhile, entertainment group iDreamSky Technology Holdings Limited completed its IPO in Hong Kong and received an over-subscription of 11.6 times.
The company has received a total of 160.49 million share applications, nearly 12 times the 12.7 million shares available. iDreamSky set the share price at HK$6.6 apiece. The company has also offered 114,274 million shares internationally. iDreamSky eyes to raise a total of HK$745.3 million from its global offering.
Shares of iDreamSky will start trading on Thursday.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.6% after data showed the Markit/Nikkei Japan Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) stood at 52.3 on a seasonally adjusted basis in November, compared to October's six-month high of 52.4.
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (T:4502) gained 1.1% after its shareholders approved on Wednesday its $59 billion takeover of London-listed Shire (LON:SHP).
Almost 90% of Takeda shareholders voted to approve the deal, the company said.
South Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.6%, while Australia’s ASX 200 was down 0.8% after the statistics bureau reported that that the country’s gross domestic product rose 0.3% from the second quarter. Analysts previously expected GDP to rise 0.6%.
On Tuesday, The Reserve Bank of Australia kept interest rates at a record-low 1.5% as expected.
In other news, suppliers to Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL).’s iPhone underperformed after chipmaker Cirrus Logic Inc (NASDAQ:CRUS) cut its December-quarter revenue outlook due to “recent weaknesses in the smartphone market.” TSMC fell 3.4%, Pegatron Corp (TW:4938) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (TW:2317) dropped almost 2%.