Shares of Asian tech companies rallied on Monday as US President Donald Trump said that electronics such as computers, laptops, smartphones and other electronics imported from China will not be subject to the same high import duty.

Apple’s largest iPhone assembler Foxconn’s shares surged around 4 per cent in Monday morning trade, with contract laptop maker Quanta gaining 7 per cent and Inventec – which also makes artificial intelligence servers – jumping 4  per cent.

Shares in China’s Goertek and Lens Tech – both Apple suppliers – also rose 3 per cent and 1.1 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile, US futures also advanced after US stocks jumped Friday. 

Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.8 per cent to 34,189.37 and South Korea’s Kospi surged 0.8 per cent to 2,452.42.

Shares in technology companies surged, with Tokyo Electron up 2 per cent and Advantest, a testing equipment maker, up 5.4 per cent. South Korea’s biggest company, Samsung Electronics, gained 1.4 per cent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 2.4 per cent to 21,419.59, while the Shanghai Composite index jumped 0.9 per cent to 3,266.26 after the government reported that China’s exports surged 12.4 per cent in March from a year earlier.

US President Donald Trump said he was exempting smartphones, computers and other electronics from his tariffs after China announced Friday that it was boosting its tariffs on US products to 125 per cent in the latest tit-for-tat increase following Trump’s escalations on imports from China.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said Trump’s move was “a small step” toward fixing its wrongful action of what Trump calls reciprocal tariffs. It urged him to cancel them completely.

Rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies could cause widespread damage and a possible global recession, even after Trump recently announced a 90-day pause on some of his tariffs for other countries, except for China.

With PTI inputs