China, Hong Kong stocks head for second week of gains on tariff relief

HONG KONG, April 25(Reuters) - China and Hong Kong stocks rose on Friday and were heading towards second consecutive weekly gains, as sentiment stabilized after White House toned down its harsh stance on China despite no signal of concrete progress on trade deals.

** At the midday break, the Shanghai Composite index .SSEC climbed 0.2% at 3,302.19, and China's blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 rose 0.4%.

** In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index .HSI jumped 1.4%. That brought the gains for the holiday-shortened week to 3.8%, the best performance in nearly two months.

** The three indexes were all standing at their highest levels since April 3, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced "reciprocal tariffs" on U.S. imports and triggered a market rout across the globe. The benchmarks are also all on track to notch up a second week of gain.

** The White House this week is considering easing tensions with China, and Trump said on Thursday that trade talks between the two countries were underway.

** That follows U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying earlier this week that de-escalation was necessary for the world's two largest economies to rebalance their trading relationship.

** "Any progress towards a trade deal helps to settle markets concerns over the worst-case scenario of a full decoupling of the world's two largest economies," said Eugene Hsiao, head of China equity strategy at Macquarie Capital, Hong Kong.

** Still, markets will be in wait and see mode at the moment given the recent volatility, he added.

** Tech shares lifted both onshore and offshore markets on Friday. The CSI Artifical Intelligence Index .CSI930713 added 1.4% and the chip sector sub-index .CSI931865 erased earlier losses to climb 0.1%.

** The Hang Seng Tech Index .HSTECH jumped 1.9% in Hong Kong.

** "We are adopting a barbell approach favouring the technology and consumer staples, and we particularly favour companies with pricing power and business models that are relatively sheltered from tariff headwinds," said Eli Lee, chief investment strategist at Bank of Singapore.