Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Asian markets continue to loose ground, signalling that the recession is gaining in strength.  Yesterday stock markets had reacted positively to the Beijing government’s decision to inject up to 600 billion dollars in financial aid.  But by midday trading today, the indexes were once again in the negative in the wake of  troubling news from the United States: AIG, a company which had already received a financial bail out from the US government to cover its debts, was granted a further 150 billion dollars after it revealed that its total debt amounts to 24.5 billion.

By mid morning Tokyo’s Nikkei index was down 3.3% and Australian markets down 4.3 %.

Seoul’s index was down 2.18: technology exporters fear a recession and have drastically cut their profit forecasts, in view of the numerous electronic distribution companies in the US that have declared bankruptcy.

For this same reason Taipei’s stock market has plunged by 6.23% so far this morning; Singapore by 2.31%.

Even Shanghai, which had rallied by 7% yesterday, closed today with a small gain of 0.36%. According to analysts a further sign of the growing recession is the reduction of inflation in China, down from 4.6% in September to 4% in October.

In Hong Kong, morning trading closed at minus 0.6%.