Updates for afternoon trade

By Sherin Sunny

July 15 (Reuters) - Equities in emerging Asia rose on Wednesday, with South Korean shares logging their best session in more than five weeks and Singapore clocking its ninth straight record high, as a benign U.S. inflation report reduced expectations for Fed rate hikes.

The MSCI EM Asia index .MIMS00000PUS gained as much as 3.5%, with South Korea's chipmaker-heavy KOSPI .KS11 settling 6.2% higher.

AI memory chipmakers SK Hynix 000660.KS and rival Samsung Electronics 005930.KS, which make up just over half of the benchmark KOSPI, ended 8.8% and 6.3% higher, respectively.

Softer-than-expected U.S. inflation reduced the probability of a July Federal Reserve interest rate hike, pushing the U.S. dollar and Treasuries lower, while chipmakers Nvidia NVDA.O and Micron Technology MU.O jumped overnight. .N US/

That sentiment "flowed directly into Seoul and the broader chip complex", said Inki Cho, a senior financial market strategist at Exness.

"On top of that, SK Hynix's ADR (American Depository Receipts) SKHY.O surged 27%, and that move telegraphed the Seoul session before it even opened," Cho said.

Volatility is expected to persist, however, due to concerns about a potential earnings slowdown, portfolio rebalancing by foreign investors, and single-stock leveraged ETFs tied to memory chip bellwethers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics.

Taiwan stocks .TWII closed 2% higher. TSMC 2330.TW, the world's top contract chipmaker and a key Nvidia and Apple AAPL.O supplier, ended 0.8% higher after advancing as much as 1.7%. The stock makes up around 43% of the benchmark.

Singapore stocks .STI rose as much as 1.2%, largely on the back of major banks. The index has advanced more than 7% this month.

Currencies in emerging Asian economies held their ground as the dollar =USD remained under pressure from fading prospects of a U.S. rate hike this month.

The MSCI gauge of emerging market currencies .MIEM00000CUS inched lower. The Malaysian ringgit MYR= and the Singapore dollar SGD= strengthened marginally, while the Thai baht THB=TH slipped 0.2%.

The South Korean won KRW=KFTC touched a two-month high of 1,484.5 before giving up the gains.

A potentially more hawkish Bank of Korea at Thursday's meeting, continued semiconductor sector strength, and cheap won valuations have partly helped the currency outperform regional peers in recent sessions, Llody Chan, an FX strategist at MUFG, said in a note.

The central bank is expected to raise interest rates for the first time in more than three years on Thursday and deliver another increase by the end of the year, a Reuters poll showed.

Indonesian equities .JKSE gained for a fifth straight day, while the rupiah IDR= traded at a one-week high.

The Indonesia Stock Exchange CEO, Jeffrey Hendrik, said the bourse would add 37 stocks to its list of companies with highly concentrated shareholdings as part of reforms following a warning earlier this year from index provider MSCI MSCI.N.

HIGHLIGHTS:

** Singapore's DBS targets over $774 billion in wealth assets by 2030

** China's Q2 GDP growth cools to 3-1/2-year low, structural imbalances complicate policy

** South Korea fin min: will be ready by early-2027 for MSCI developed market inclusion

Asia stock indexes and currencies at 0712 GMT
COUNTRY	FX RIC	FX DAILY %	FX YTD %	INDEX	STOCKS DAILY %	STOCKS YTD %
Japan	JPY=	+0.02	-3.42	.N225	1.49	32.64
China	CNY=CFXS	+0.07	+3.24	.SSEC	-0.30	-0.34
India	INR=IN	+0.02	-6.57	.NSEI	0.53	-7.46
Indonesia	IDR=	+0.08	-7.72	.JKSE	0.37	-29.90
Malaysia	MYR=	+0.10	-0.39	.KLSE	-0.19	2.18
Philippines	PHP=	-0.11	-4.60	.PSI	0.74	4.12
S.Korea	KRW=KFTC	+0.09	-3.33	.KS11	6.85	73.86
Singapore	SGD=	+0.05	-0.37	.STI	1.00	19.47
Taiwan	TWD=TP	-0.09	-2.37	.TWII	1.73	57.14
Thailand	THB=TH	-0.22	-6.25	.SETI	0.65	29.93