By John Phillips Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Asian stock markets were mostly higher Friday on the back of Wall Street's strength, while the Bank of Japan's second-quarter Tankan survey showing that big firms plan to boost capital expenditure underpinned gains in Tokyo. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.5%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.1%, South Korea's Kospi Composite jumped 0.9% and New Zealand's NZX-50 added 0.5%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 14 points in screen trade. "While it is likely that risk premiums will be reduced with an immediate crisis in Greece being avoided, markets are unlikely to return to historical average PE levels in the near future. There is still a lot that can go wrong including ongoing debt problems in Europe and the U.S.," said Ric Spooner, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney. Investors were also digesting China's official manufacturing Personal Managers' Index data, which showed the index falling to 50.9 in June from 52.0 in May -- the third consecutive month of slowing in the manufacturing sector. Recent PMI and other data have showed the world's second largest economy continuing to grow at a decent clip, easing concerns about the potentially hazardous combination of weak growth and high inflation. In Tokyo, stocks were supported by the BOJ's second-quarter Tankan survey. Although the survey highlighted worsening sentiment in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake, with the closely watched index for large manufacturers turning negative for the first time in over a year, investors were encouraged by big firms' capital expenditure plans. The Tankan showed that big manufacturers and non-manufacturers plan to boost capital spending by 4.2% in the current fiscal year. "Capital spending is a reflection of the corporate earnings outlook so the market positively views an aggressive stance by firms to use their ample cash flow for investment," said Fumiyuki Takahashi, an equity strategist at Barclays Capital Japan. All 33 Topix subindexes were higher with Fanuc up 3.1% and Tokyo Electron up 1.1%. Big cap stocks Toyota Motor and Sony rose 1.1% and 0.5%, respectively. Astellas Pharma rose 0.3% after the drug maker said late Thursday it will sell its diabetes treatment patent to a U.S. investment fund for $609 million. Shares in Australia were weighed by China's soft PMI data. The resource-rich Australian economy is highly exposed to China's growth cycle. There was evidence of bargain hunting in some stocks affected by tax-loss selling, with Telstra up 1.4% and Bluescope up 2.5%. Rio Tinto fell 0.3%, while ANZ Bank lost 0.2%. News Corp., the owner of this newswire, rose 1.3% after moving a step closer to final regulatory approval for its bid to take full control of U.K. pay-TV giant British Sky Broadcasting Group. In Seoul, tech and construction companies led gains on bargain hunting. "Considering that a large portion of recent foreign selling was from European funds, an increase in foreign appetite could be anticipated" amid easing euro-zone sovereign debt problems, said Woori Investment & Securities analyst Lee Kyoung-min. Samsung Electronics rose 2.1%, Hynix climbed 3.0%, while Samsung Heavy Industries rose 1.1%. Utilities companies continued to underperform amid uncertainty over whether anticipated price hikes in electricity and gas charges will materialize; Kepco slipped 0.9%, while Kogas fell 1.4%. In foreign exchange markets, traders were closely watching this weekend's Eurogroup meeting after Greece's parliament approved legislation implementing a crucial five-year austerity plan Thursday, removing fears of an imminent debt default. Wellington-based Bank of New Zealand currency strategist Mike Burrowes said the euro may continue to gain ahead of an official announcement on a second bail out package, but expects a pull back over the medium term. "The longer term structural issues are still there (in Europe) so we need to find some solution to those and that needs to happen pretty quickly," he said. The yen pulled down on the Tankan survey's weak headline index, while the euro eased slightly against the dollar after China's PMI data. The Australian dollar fell to US$1.0682, and was recently at US$1.0685, from US$1.0720 before the China data. The single currency was at $1.4480 against the dollar, from $1.4502 late Thursday in New York, and at Y117.01 against the yen, from Y116.81. The dollar was at Y80.84, from Y80.56. September Japanese government bond futures were down 0.20 at 140.84 points, while the 10-year cash JGB yield was up 2.0 basis point at 1.150%. Spot gold was at $1,510.90 per troy ounce, down 90 cents from its New York settlement on Thursday. August Nymex crude oil futures were down 57 cents at $94.85 per barrel on Globex. -John Phillips, Dow Jones Newswires; +65-6415-4142; john.phillips@dowjones.com TALK BACK: We invite readers to send us comments on this or other financial news topics. Please email us at TalkbackAsia@dowjones.com. Readers should include their full names, work or home addresses and telephone numbers for verification purposes. We reserve the right to edit and publish your comments along with your name; we reserve the right not to publish reader comments.

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