South Korean President Yoon Seok-yol has arrived in Ukraine on an unannounced visit, South Korea’s Ryonhap news agency reported.
“Yoon and first lady Kim Kyung-hee arrived in Ukraine from Poland,” the agency quoted the president’s senior press secretary Kim Eun-hye as saying Saturday.
Yoon reportedly visited the site of mass killings in Bucha near Kiev and then visited Irpin.
According to the news agency, the South Korean president “plans to lay a wreath at a war memorial before holding a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.”
The visit comes at the end of a two-stage trip of the South Korean president, during which he visited Lithuania at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit and then Poland on an official visit.
Stock indices in Japan and South Korea are rising on Monday while the Chinese indicator is sinking.
Australian and Hong Kong markets are closed due to the Easter holiday.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock index is up 0.4% in trading thanks to data on rising consumer confidence in the country.
Japan’s Consumer Confidence Index in March rose to a maximum of 33.9 points from 31.1 points a month earlier in May last year, according to official statistical data. The consensus forecast of experts quoted by Trading Economics had expected the index to rise to 31.9 points.
Indicators of personal income growth, employment, general standard of living and consumers’ willingness to buy durable goods rose in March.
Shares of Fast Retailing, owner of the Uniqlo brand, gained 1.6 percent in trading. Nintendo rose 3.8%, Sony gained 0.4% and Toyota Motor gained 0.2%.
Among the leaders of growth in Japan on Monday are shares of shipping companies. Nippon Yusen shares gained 3.2%, Mitsui OSK Lines gained 2.1% and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha gained 1.9%.
The share price of Japan Display Inc. soared 21%. The Japanese company said Monday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s HKC Corp. to form a strategic alliance to develop operations in OLED technology.
Japan Display and HKC plan to jointly build facilities to produce next-generation OLED displays and intend to launch mass production in 2025.
South Korea’s KOSPI stock index is adding 0.9 percent in trading.
Shares of Samsung Electronics rose 1.1% despite the weak preliminary report of the South Korean maker of smartphones and semiconductor components for the first quarter.
The company’s January-March operating profit fell 20 times in the quarter, according to preliminary data released after the market closed Friday.
Samsung also said Friday that it intends to “significantly” cut production of certain types of memory chips to streamline manufacturing operations.
South Korea’s government said late last week that it would direct 7 trillion won ($5.32 billion) over the next five years to financially support local battery manufacturers planning to build facilities in North America.
LG Electronics Inc. shares, which also released preliminary earnings Friday, are down 1.1%. The company reported a 23% decline in operating profit in the first quarter.
Shares of LG Energy Solution Ltd. rose 2.6%. The battery maker, according to preliminary estimates, increased operating profit nearly 2.5 times in the first quarter, beating experts’ expectations.
China’s Shanghai Composite stock index is losing 0.2%. Traders are worried about another round of tensions in U.S.-China relations after a meeting in the U.S. between current U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwanese Chief of Staff Tsai Ing-wen.
The Chinese army began massive military exercises around Taiwan on April 8, which an army spokesman said were “a warning to separatist forces advocating Taiwanese independence and a necessary measure to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Shares of Chinese anti-virus developer 360 Security Technology lost 10% in trading, electronics maker Changsha Jingjia Microelectronics Co. – 14%, and alcohol producer Wuliangye Yibin 2.7%.
