Upward trend on Asian stock exchanges

There were positive tones on Asia's leading stock exchanges after a few hours of trading on Tuesday. In Japan, both the Topix index and the important Nikkei 225 had risen by around 0.3 percent.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was up 1 percent at lunchtime, while Shanghai's and Shenzhen's composite index had climbed by 2 and 2.2 percent, respectively.

South Korea's Kospi index was up 2.4 percent.