Some 15 agreements were signed during Lula's visit to Beijing, including deals to cooperate on semiconductors, a satellite to monitor the Amazon and cyber security

The Kospi in Korea, the ASX 200 in Australia and the Nikkei in Japan all rose more than 1%; Hong Kong was also up, while Shanghai edged down slightly after more negative data on Tuesday

Russia's central bank has been calling for companies and citizens to move assets into rouble or 'friendly' currencies to avoid the risk of them being blocked or frozen amid sanctions over war in Ukraine

Increasing oil deals between the two countries have already begun to corrode the US dollar’s long-running dominance in energy trade

China's long-term battle to reduce the dollar's dominance in world trade took two steps forward this week, with the first LNG trade in yuan, plus Brazil agreeing to trade via local currencies

China and Brazil have struck a deal to trade in their own currencies instead of the US dollar, the Brazilian government said on Wednesday, in another hit to US economic influence

One of the government officials directly involved in the matter said New Delhi is "not comfortable" with foreign trade settled in yuan but said settlement in "dirham is okay"

Sanctions on Russia are slowly eating away at the dollar's dominance by encouraging Asian traders such as India to use other currencies, like the UAE dirham or the rouble.

Shares in Hong Kong, Sydney and Shanghai took a tumble, while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 1.7% lower; dollar rises to 3-month high

The yuan has been weakened by concerns that US interest rates might rise further and geopolitical tensions, which are keeping investment flows away from China

The region's stock indexes sparked back into life on Wednesday posting their best returns in seven weeks after data showed China's manufacturing sector rallied strongly in February

Virtually all markets across Asia followed US markets down on Friday, with the strong expectation that the US central bank will hike rates further in the months ahead