Asian Markets End Higher on Strong US Data

This is a transcript of top stories presented by China's CCTV Business Channel as produced by CNBC Asia Pacific.

Hello to our viewers all over China.

You're watching “Asia Market Daily”, co-produced by CCTV Business Channel and CNBC, first in business worldwide.

I am Saijal Patel and here are the top stories across Asia today.

A positive showing for Asian markets this Thursday.

Stocks reached a 2-week high during trading day after major indices on Wall Street racked up triple-digit gains overnight.

Improvement in August U.S. ISM numbers brought back some confidence to the markets, but there're still concerns ahead of Friday's non-farm payrolls report.

(SOT) David Katz, Senior Portfolio Strategist, WeiserMazars:

“It's certainly nice to see positive numbers and positive flashes in the pan in the market place. But we've come to a period where recently we've seen the economic numbers, whether it's be the employment numbers, to the housing numbers, which were lackluster at best, the volatility has gone on the other direction on those days, so we are looking at a market that's sort of predicated on day to day economic data and what that might do to the crisis of economic confidence on individual investors.”

And now for a closer look at the Japan markets, where the benchmark Nikkei 225 closed 1.5 percent higher as exporters rebound.

Stocks in South Korea also in positive territory pushed up by the tech sector. KOSPI finishing 0.6 percent higher.

In Australia, the S&P ASX 200 closed 0.8 percent higher with stocks hitting a 3-week high in intra-day trade.

North Asian markets also marched higher.

Auto stocks led the gains in China markets, on the back of news that August auto sales exceeded market expectations.

Ping An also gained in it's first day of trade after more than a 2-month halt. The firm has agreed to buy a further 32 percent stake in Shenzhen Development Bank for $4.3 billion dollars.

The value and volume of deals in the global mining and metals sector is set to soar, driven by competition to secure raw materials.

That's the findings of a report published by Ernst & Young today.

Transaction activity started to pick up in late 2009 and has been steadily rising.

(SOT) Mike Elliot, Global Mining & Metals Leader, Ernst & Young:

“During the first half of 2010, we not only saw an increase in the volume of deals at a 20% increase year-on-year, but we also saw a 46% increase in value of deals, that's quite encouraging, meaning larger and larger deals have been done during the period.”

The pick-up in M&A activity is expected to continue for the next 6 to 12 months.

And equity remains the preferred source of capital in the sector, despite the fact that the price of debt is cheapest in years.

(SOT) Mike Elliot, Global Mining & Metals Leader, Ernst & Young:

“I think it's the availability while the bond market is open and we continue to see good growth in the availability of commercial paper debt, the banks are only just coming back in and making that available for acquisition funding.”

In other business news, Tesco is in the lead for Carrefour's South East Asian assets after the first round of bids among more than 10 participants.

Bidders included French retailer Casino, Japan's Aeon and Singapore's Dairy Farm.

Analysts say Carrefour should have no problem getting its target price of 1-billion dollars for the 61 stores in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

But the French retailer is not abandoning Asia completely — It's keeping its operations in China.

Meantime, India is issuing an ultimatum to Google and Skype.

The government says both companies must set up servers in India or face a ban.

India wants access to encrypted emails and calls made over the internet using Google and Skype.

The companies have two months to comply.

Earlier, Blackberry maker, Research in Motion was also black-listed, but it has since won a two-month reprieve on demands for access to its data, while the government looks at its plan to set up an Indian-based server.

Just before we go, we check in on the latest Apple event out of the U.S., where the company's looking to expand its reach and finessing its lineup.

CNBC's Silicon Valley correspondent Jon Fortt was at the event and filed this report.

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Well, the big news out of Apple today was as expected - iPods, iTunes and Apple TV. Let's dive right in. The biggest news was the iPod Touch now has face time video conferencing. Two cameras in that device.

Alot more like the iPhone 4. Apple has got to be hoping that this gooses revenues of the iPod time which had flattened out over the past couple of years and maybe also boosts margins as the iPod Touch gets better margins than the rest if the iPods in there. Also, the iPod Nano no longer has a quick reel.

Its got a touch screen and the iPod shuffle has buttons again, something that users were looking for again. On to iTunes, now iTunes10 has a social networking feature called Pink. Now you can see what your favorite artistes are buying, what they like and you can see what your friends like, you can follow people and choose to let them follow you. Alot of facebook-like features. This can't be good for MySpace which built its whole reputation being a social network centered on music.

Finally, we've got Apple TV. Apple has long called this a hobby. It didn't really sell like they had hoped. A number of changes to the Apple TV. One is now it's all about streaming, not downloads. It's all about rentals, not about buying music or movies necessarily. TV shows are a big issue here. Now you can rent those for 99 cents instead of buying those. Only two networks, though, are carrying those in the US, ABC and Fox.

Interesting to see whether Apple can get the others to sign on. Probably depends on a couple of factors. One, can they sell enough Apple TVs to make a case of user base is strong. And two, can Apple show that folks who rent these also watch the shows on TV because the TV networks don't want to see something like this cannibalizing their TV audience. We'll see in the holiday season how all that pans out in Apple's biggest quarter. And that is coming up soon. I'm John Fortt for CNBC Asia.

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Well, that wraps up today's business highlights.

I'm Saijal Patel from CNBC.

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