SINGAPORE: Samsung Electronics and other tech shares fuelled Asian markets last Friday after Wall Street rose to multi-year peaks, while stocks of Japanese auto makers and exporters bounced on the US dollar's jump to a one-month high.

The dollar leapt to a high of 108.30 against the yen - its highest since December 15 - from the day's low of 106.18 after the Bank of Japan was seen intervening heavily, but it quickly lost half of that gain.

"I was looking at my screen and turned away to look at stock prices, and when I turned back, it had shot off the board," said Soichi Okuda, senior economist at Sumitomo Corporation.

Oil prices surged to nine-month highs of US$34.36 a barrel, their highest mark since before the Iraq War, due to freezing weather in the Northeast United States.

The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.4 per cent to its highest in nearly four years.

Shares in Samsung Electronics Co Ltd rose more than 8 per cent to a record high ahead of its fourth-quarter results next Thursday. The world's top memory chip maker is set for a 34 per cent rise in net profits on growing demand for flat screens and chips for digital cameras.

Hynix Semiconductor Inc and LG Electronics Inc also jumped, aiding a 2.6 per cent rise in the South Korean benchmark index.

"Foreign funds are flooding in, targetting IT shares on a bright 2004 outlook, and after foreign investors enjoyed lofty profits from many local technology shares last year," said Hwang Joong-kwon, an analyst at Hyundai Securities.

But LG Card Co again fell by its 15 per cent daily limit despite comments by a creditor spokesman that lenders were expected to reach a final accord on a US$4.2 billion bail-out plan.

Tokyo's Nikkei average rose 1.2 per cent to close at an 11-week high of 10,965.01 and is inching towards the 11,000 mark it last crossed in October.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp rocketed almost 15 per cent after its biggest shareholder DaimlerChrysler AG said it was considering a capital increase in Japan's fourth-largest automaker, while Toyota Motor Co gained 2.5 per cent on the yen's drop.

Agencies via Xinhua

(Business Weekly 01/13/2004 page7)