European stocks rise

The good news from Asia lifted Germany's DAX by 2.15 percent to 10,489.29 points in the first minutes of trading on Wednesday. The CAC 40 in Paris followed suit, shooting 2.37 percent higher to 4,707.41 points.

Outside the eurozone, London's FTSE 100 index gained 1.68 percent to 6,249.02 points. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 jumped 2.1 percent in initial trade, lifted by a strong performance by the no-frills airline Ryanair, whose shares rose to an all-time high after the company raised its full-year profits outlook by 25 percent.

Earlier in the day, traders at the Tokyo Stock Exchange watched the benchmark index Nikkei 225 post its strongest gains in nearly seven years, rising 7.7 percent to 18,770.51 points.

The jump was significant because yesterday the index lost 2.34 percent, wiping out all progress since the beginning of the year. Weak trade data from China had compounded investors' worries that the economic malaise of the world's second-largest economy could eventually spill over into other markets.

More 'Abenomics'

The Japanese index's rebound came after the country's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, raised hopes that his government would do more to stimulate the economy. In remarks read aloud at a conference in Tokyo, Abe promised to slash corporate tax rates by 3.3 percent next year.

Investors were also emboldened after China's Ministry of Finance unveiled new measures aimed at reviving slumping growth, including more infrastructure spending and tax reforms for small businesses.

Those signs that Beijing was doing what was necessary to stabilize markets led to a rebound in Shanghai shares on Tuesday. US stocks also kept the momentum going and posted broad gains across the three major indexes.

"At long last we may be seeing a real rebound," Bloomberg News quoted Chihiro Ohta, the general manager at SMBC Nikko Securities, as saying of the upswing in Chinese shares.

cjc/uhe (AFP, Reuters, dpa, AP)