Stocks in Asia declined on Monday following significantly weaker-than-expected Chinese trade data released over the weekend. The mainland Chinese markets, closely watched as a result of the trade war between Beijing and Washington, slipped on the day. The Shanghai composite declined by 0.82 percent to close at about 2,584.58 while the Shenzhen composite shed 1.345 percent to finish the trading day at around 1,332.53. Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 1.22 percent during its final hour of trade as Hong Kong-listed shares of China Construction Bank slipped 1.39 percent and Chinese tech juggernaut Tencent lost 0.9 percent.

Chinese November trade data dwindles

China reported notably weaker than expected November exports and imports, which pointed to slower global and domestic demand and raised the possibility that Beijing may undertake more measures to boost growth. November exports rose 5.4 percent from a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data on Saturday, which was below the 10 percent jump predicted by a Reuters poll. That number was also the weakest performance since a 3 percent contraction in March. The customs data showed that annual growth for exports to all of China's major partners slowed significantly. Import growth was 3 percent, the slowest since October 2016, and a fraction of the 14.5 percent expected in the Reuters poll. Imports of iron ore fell for a second time, reflecting waning restocking demand at steel-mills as profit margins narrow. "China's November trade data missed expectations by a hefty margin," said analysts from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in a morning note. "Softer export growth reflects slower global growth and the fading effect of US importers' front‑loading shipments to avoid increases in tariffs. Falling import growth points to softening domestic demand. But we expect Chinese fiscal stimulus to support imports in 2019," they said.

Rest of Asia mostly declines

China lodges 'strong protests' to Huawei CFO arrest

'Hard deadline' on US-China trade war pause

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told CBS in an interview on Sunday that the end of the 90-day pause in tariff escalation between Washington and Beijing in their trade war is a "hard deadline." "As far as I am concerned it is a hard deadline. When I talk to the president of the United States he is not talking about going beyond March," he said on the CBS show "Face the Nation," referring to President Donald Trump's decision to delay tariffs imposition until March 1 while talks proceed. At the G-20 summit in Argentina, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping struck an agreement to delay imposing additional tariffs on each other's goods for 90 days. Sat Duhra, fund manager at Janus Henderson Investors, told CNBC's "Street Signs" that he was "quite hopeful that some kind of resolution will be reached" between the two economic powerhouses. That will, however, likely come about as a result of a "compromise" from China, Duhra said, adding that "China has a weaker hand at this point."

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