By Doyinsola Oladipo, Julia Harte and Rich McKay

(Reuters) - The incongruous sight of tourists enjoying Maui's tropical beaches while search-and-rescue teams trawl building ruins and waters for victims of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century has outraged some residents.

They have vented on social media, posting video of tourists enjoying holiday activities like snorkeling while the death toll in the historic resort town of Lahaina passes 100 and is rising every day.

"Our community needs time to heal, grieve, and restore," Hawaiian actor Jason Momoa said on Instagram, urging tourists to cancel their trips.

Authorities and businesses have welcomed the trickle of travelers, saying it will lessen the blow to the island's economy, which relies heavily on tourism. The industry is Maui's "economic engine," generating 80% of its wealth, according to the island's economic development board.

As Maui embarks on a long, painful recovery from the fires, officials are wrestling with how to balance residents' immediate needs for housing and resources against the island's long-term financial health.

Hawaii Governor Josh Green recalled at a weekend press conference how the COVID-19 pandemic similarly forced the state to weigh the risks of allowing tourists in during a public health crisis against the harm Hawaii's economy would suffer from barring them.

"All of our people will need to survive, and we can't afford to have no jobs or no future for our children," Green said. "When you restrict any travel to a region, you really devastate its own local residents in many ways more than anyone else."

Tourism has taken a hit in the week since the wildfire devastated Lahaina, a popular vacation destination that was also home to historic sites significant to Hawaiian residents.

The number of airline passengers to Maui on Sunday was down nearly 81% compared to the same time last year, according to the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

In 2022, 2.9 million tourists visited Maui, which has a year-round population of 165,000, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. The state tourism department reported in February that visitors spent $5.69 billion on Maui in 2022.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority now is asking visitors to avoid all non-essential travel to West Maui, the part of the island affected by the fires, so resources can be used to help locals recover.

“It is likely that a big chunk of the people who are affected, losing family members, losing family homes, it's likely a lot of them were employed by the visitor industry," tourism authority spokesperson Ilihia Gionson said.

Hotels in West Maui have temporarily stopped accepting bookings. Many are housing their employees and preparing to house evacuees and first-responders working on disaster recovery, according to the tourism authority.

The agency urged visitors to areas of Maui that did not burn - such as Kahului, Wailuku, Kihei, Wailea and Makena - to contact their accommodation and ensure they could still be hosted.

"Maui is not closed," Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said at the weekend press conference alongside the governor. "Many of our residents make their living off of tourism."

Reached by phone on Tuesday, the Four Seasons Resort at Wailea Beach in South Maui said all hotel operations were running normally, but that it was encouraging tourists with August reservations to postpone their trips until the rest of the island had recovered more fully.

Occupancy at the five-star hotel had plunged "dramatically" since the fire, a front desk operator said.

Hotel operator Hilton Worldwide Holdings (NYSE:HLT), which has 23 hotels throughout Hawaii, said it was waiving cancellation penalties for those traveling to, from or through all islands of Hawaii through Aug. 31.

Jack Richards, CEO of Los Angeles-based travel company Pleasant Holidays, scrambled to evacuate more than 400 customers who were on Maui during the fires. Dead phone lines and lost internet connections hampered the efforts, he said.

Most of the tourists were eventually relocated to other Hawaiian islands. Another 1,400 customers with August travel plans to Maui need to be rebooked, he said.

Tour operators who continued to offer services in or around West Maui after the fires faced a flood of criticism.

A company that held a charity snorkeling tour on Friday 11 miles (18 km) from Lahaina later issued an apology and said it was suspending operations for the time being.

By Ankur Banerjee

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asian shares slid to nine-month lows on Thursday, while the dollar was at two-month peak as fears over China's sluggish economic recovery and concerns that the Federal Reserve may still raise interest rates rattled investors.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slid to 495.03, its lowest since Nov. 29. It was last down 1.14% at 497.11, with the index down 8% for August and set for its worst monthly performance since September.

Losses were broad-based across Asia Pacific on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index down 1%.

China's blue-chip CSI 300 Index was 0.45% lower, while the Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 1.7% and was at near nine month lows.

China stocks have been in the doldrums as a series of economic data has laid bare the stuttering post-pandemic recovery, with investors so far unimpressed with moves from policymakers.

"Investors looking for more aggressive support from policymakers amid soft activity have been disappointed as the recent incremental measures haven't been sufficient to restore confidence," said Taylor Nugent, an economist at NAB.

Adding to the worrying landscape for the world's second biggest economy is the deepening property sector crisis. Missed payments on investment products by a leading Chinese trust firm and a fall in home prices have enhanced the gloom.

Overnight, Wall Street ended lower after minutes from the Fed's July meeting showed officials were divided over the need for more interest rate hikes. [.N]

"Some participants" cited the risks to the economy of pushing rates too far even as "most" policymakers continued to prioritise the battle against inflation.

The U.S. central bank hiked rates by 25 basis points at the July meeting after standing pat in June. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at the time the economy still needed to slow and the labor market to weaken for inflation to "credibly" return to the U.S. central bank's 2% target.

The commentary from officials, including the hawks suggest a willingness to pause again in September, but to leave the door ajar for a further hike at either November of December meetings, ING economists said in a note.

"We think the Fed will indeed leave interest rates unchanged in September, but we don't think it will carry through with that final forecast hike," they said, pointing out that further rate hikes could heighten the chances of recession.

Markets are pricing in an 86% chance of the Fed standing pat next month, CME FedWatch tool showed, with a 36% chance of it hiking in its November meeting.

Benchmark 10-year yields reached 4.288%, the highest since Oct. 21, with a 16-year peak of 4.338% in sight. [US/]

The rising yields lifted the dollar, with the dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against six rivals, touching a two-month peak of 103.58 as investors sought safety. [FRX/]

The Japanese yen weakened 0.07% to 146.42 per dollar, a fresh nine-month low, as traders kept a vigil on possible intervention chatter from Japanese officials. Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Tuesday authorities were not targeting absolute currency levels for intervention.

Worries over China and the trajectory of the U.S. interest rates also rattled the commodities market, with oil prices dropping for the fourth straight session. U.S. crude fell 0.34% to $79.11 per barrel and Brent was at $83.23, down 0.26% on the day. [O/R]

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's exports fell in July for the first time in nearly 2-1/2 years, dragged down by faltering demand for light oil and chip-making equipment, underlining concerns about a global recession as key markets like China weakened.

Ministry of Finance (MOF) data out Thursday showed Japanese exports fell 0.3% in July year-on-year, compared with a 0.8% decrease expected by economists in a Reuters poll. It followed a 1.5% rise in the previous month.

Separate data by the Cabinet Office showed a key gauge of capital expenditures rose in June, providing a glimmer of hope for fostering sustainable economic growth.

Overall, the batch of data underscored fragility in Japan's export engine that helped underpin second quarter domestic product (GDP) growth, with car shipments and inbound tourism the biggest drivers.

Japanese policymakers are counting on exports to shore up the world's No. 3 economy and pick up the slack in private consumption that has suffered due to broader price hikes.

However, the spectre of a sharper global slowdown and faltering growth in its major market China have raised concerns about the outlook.

By destination, exports to China, Japan's largest trading partner, fell 13.4% year-on-year in July, due to drops in shipments of cars, stainless steel and IC chips, following a 10.9% decline in June.

U.S.-bound shipments, Japan's key ally, rose 13.5% year-on-year last month to log the largest in value on record, led by shipments of electric vehicles and car parts, following a 11.7% rise in the previous month.

Imports fell 13.5% in the year to July, versus the median estimate for a 14.7% decrease.

The trade balance swung to a deficit of 78.7 billion yen ($537.27 million), versus the median estimate for a 24.6 billion yen surplus.

Separate data also showed Japan's core machinery orders rose 2.7% in June from the previous month. Compared with a year earlier, core orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as an indicator of capital spending in the coming six to nine months, declined 5.8%.

($1 = 146.4800 yen)

GENEVA (Reuters) -A World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel on Wednesday found that China had acted inconsistently with its WTO obligations by imposing additional duties on certain U.S. imports in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium.

The office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it was pleased with the WTO decision, adding that China had "illegally retaliated with sham 'safeguard' tariffs."

China's Commerce Ministry said it had noted the WTO panel decision and demanded that the United States immediately lift tariffs imposed on steel and aluminium imports.

The U.S. imposed a 25% duty on steel imports and a 10% duty on aluminium imports in March 2018 based on the Donald Trump administration's "Section 232" national security investigation into steel and aluminium imports.

The panel recommended that China bring its "WTO-inconsistent measures into conformity".

Beijing could appeal the ruling, which would send it into a legal void because Washington has blocked appointments to the WTO Appellate Body, rendering it incapable of giving a judgment.

The WTO ruled last year that the U.S. move had also violated international trade rules, with Washington also appealing the decision.

In response to the U.S. duties, China announced that additional duties of between 15% and 25% would apply to certain imports originating in the United States, a measure challenged by Washington.

The United States agreed to remove tariffs on EU imports in 2021 but President Joe Biden's administration has otherwise kept in place the metals tariffs that were one of the centrepieces of Trump's America First strategy.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Global wealth, as measured in personal holdings of assets from real estate to stocks and shares, is projected to rise 38% by 2027, driven largely by emerging markets, a study published by Credit Suisse and UBS showed on Tuesday.

The annual Global Wealth Report, which estimates the wealth holdings of 5.4 billion adults across 200 markets, says global wealth will reach $629 trillion over the next five years.

The upbeat outlook comes despite 2022 recording the first fall in net global household wealth since the 2008 global financial crisis.

In nominal terms, net private wealth dipped 2.4% last year, with the loss concentrated in more prosperous regions such as North America and Europe, the report showed. A stronger U.S. dollar was a big factor.

The largest wealth increases last year were recorded for Russia, Mexico, India and Brazil. The report forecast wealth in emerging economies, including the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - will rise 30% by 2027.

It expects the further increases in emerging markets to contribute to a reduction in global wealth inequality in the coming years.

The largest declines last year came from financial assets, as opposed to non-financial assets such as real estate, which remained resilient.

Broken down on an individual basis, this meant adults were $3,198 worse off by the end of last year.

However, "global median wealth, arguably a more meaningful indicator of how the typical person is faring, did in fact increase by 3% in 2022 in contrast to the 3.6% fall in wealth per adult," the report said.

Median wealth has seen a five-fold increase this century, largely due to rapid wealth growth in China.

SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Yield differentials between China and the United States widened to their highest 16 years on Wednesday, as investors speculated that China's central bank would ease monetary policy further after a surprise rate cut, even if it puts the yuan under pressure.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) unexpectedly cut key policy rates for the second time in three months on Tuesday, in a fresh sign that the authorities are ramping up monetary easing efforts to boost a sputtering economic recovery. And markets widely expect the PBOC to loosen monetary policy further.

Earlier in the session, the PBOC also ramped up liquidity injection by offering the most short-term cash through seven-day reverse repos in open market operations since February. [CN/MMT]

China remains an outlier among global central banks as it has loosened monetary policy to shore up a stalling recovery whereas others, particularly the United States, have been in tightening cycles as they battle high inflation.

But the divergent monetary policy paths between the world's two largest economies widened the yield gap to 164 basis points between China's benchmark 10-year government bonds and U.S Treasuries's - the highest since February 2007.

"The significant yield gap, the largest since 2007, could be a key reason why capital remains planted in US dollars and US Treasuries for the time being," said David Chao, global market strategist at Asia Pacific at Invesco.

"More broadly, recent economic data releases in China have been disappointing, while those in the U.S. have surprised to the upside."

The widening yield gap reduced foreign appetite in China's onshore yuan bonds, with latest official data showing overseas investors' holding declined in July.

Tumbling credit growth and rising deflation risks in July warranted more monetary easing measures to arrest the slowdown, market watchers said, while default risks at some major property developers and missed payments by a private wealth manager also hurt confidence in China's financial markets.

In derivatives market, one-year interest rate swaps, a gauge that measures investor expectations of future funding costs, fell to 1.84% this week, the lowest since September 2022, suggesting some market participants are pricing in further rate reductions.

But the expectations for further monetary easing and capital outflow risks has pressure on the Chinese yuan to depreciate further. The yuan has lost about 5.5% against the dollar since the start of the year, making it one of the worst performing Asian currencies.

"The PBOC will need to do more to manage the pace of yuan depreciation," Eugenia Victorino, head of Asia strategy at SEB, said in a note.

By Lucy Craymer

WELLINGTON (Reuters) -New Zealand's central bank held the cash rate steady at 5.5% on Wednesday but slightly pushed out when it expects to start cutting the cash rate to 2025, which provided some support for the New Zealand dollar.

The decision was in line with expectations from 29 economists in a Reuters poll all forecasting the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) would leave the cash rate at a 14-year high for the second consecutive meeting.

"The committee agreed that the OCR (official cash rate) needs to stay at restrictive levels for the foreseeable future to ensure annual consumer price inflation returns to the 1% to 3% target range," the statement said.

It said conditional on its central economic outlook, the cash rate would need to remain at around its current level for slightly longer than was assumed in its May statement to meet its inflation and employment objectives.

The RBNZ continues to forecast the official cash rate (OCR) to peak at its current level of 5.5% with some upside risk of another hike, but now does not expect to cut until the first half of 2025, according to the monetary policy review (MPR) accompanying the rate decision.

The New Zealand dollar bounced off lows following the statement to trade up 0.2% at $0.5961, while New Zealand bank bill futures slipped as the market priced in slightly more risk of another hike.

A front-runner in withdrawing pandemic-era stimulus among its peers, the RBNZ has battled to curb inflation, lifting rates by 525 basis points since October 2021 in the most aggressive tightening since the official cash rate was introduced in 1999.

New Zealand's annual inflation has come off in recent months and is currently 6.0%, just below a three-decade high of 6.7%, with expectations it will return to the central bank's 1% to3% target by the second half of 2024.

The rate hikes have sharply slowed the economy, now in a technical recession following two quarters of negative growth.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will expand financing support for exporting companies by around 50% more this year, the financial regulator said on Wednesday, to bolster exports amid persistently weak demand.

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) said it would provide a total of 23 trillion won ($17.2 billion) worth of financial support for exporters through public and private banks from September, along with other measures to ease difficulty in trade financing.

It comes on top of 41 trillion won worth of financial support already provided through policy funds so far this year, the FSC said in a statement.

Specific measures include expanded credit and lower borrowing costs for companies entering new markets, bidding for overseas project orders, and making investment in major industries such as semiconductor, rechargeable battery, biopharmaceuticals and nuclear energy.

The measures are aimed at supporting a recovery in exports as well as improvement in mid- and long-term competitiveness of exporting companies, the FSC said, citing difficult conditions they are facing from weakened supply chains and intensified competition for advanced technologies to high interest rates.

South Korea's July exports fell for the 10th straight month and at the steepest pace in more than three years, raising concerns that the downturn may drag on longer than expected amid weak demand.

South Korea's economic growth sped up in the second quarter, after narrowly averting a recession in the first, but it was due largely to an improvement in net trade as imports fell more than exports, while consumer and business spending weakened.

($1 = 1,336.4600 won)

By Laurie Chen and Albee Zhang

(Reuters) -China suspended publication of its youth jobless data on Tuesday, saying it needed to review the methodology behind the closely watched benchmark, which has hit record highs in one of many warning signs for the world's second-largest economy.

The decision announced shortly after the release of weaker-than-expected factory and retail sales data sparked rare backlash on social media amid growing frustration about employment prospects in the country.

It also marks the latest move by Chinese authorities to restrict access to key data and information, a trend that is unnerving overseas investors.

Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said the release of data would be suspended while authorities look to "optimise" collection methods.

"In recent years, the number of university students has continued to expand," Fu said. "The main responsibility of current students is studying. Society has different views on whether students looking for jobs before graduation should be included in labour force surveys and statistics."

This issue, as well as the definition of the age range currently set at 16-24, "needs further research," Fu said.

In recent months, China has restricted foreign users' access to some corporate registries and academic journals, and cracked down on due diligence firms operating in the country, a vital source of information on China for overseas businesses.

"The declining availability of macro data may further weaken global investors' confidence in China," said Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, adding that youth unemployment was expected to have risen in July.

At the height of its COVID-19 outbreak late last year, China abruptly changed the way it classified deaths from the disease, a move that fueled criticism abroad and at home.

Tuesday's move has also been met with scepticism at home as young Chinese face their toughest summer job-hunting season.

The most recent NBS data on youth unemployment, published last month, showed the jobless rate jumping to a record high of 21.3% in June.

Some 47% of graduates returned home within six months of graduation in 2022, up from 43% in 2018, state-run China News Service reported last week, citing a private-sector survey.

"If you close your eyes then it doesn't exist," one user wrote on microblogging site Weibo (NASDAQ:WB), where a hashtag related to NBS' decision received over 10 million views.

"There is a saying called 'burying your head in the sand'," wrote another user.

The Russian rouble fell past the psychologically key 100 per U.S. dollar on Monday.

President Vladimir Putin's economic advisor said Russia was interested in a strong rouble and that loose monetary policy was the main reason behind the currency's weakening.

COMMENTS:

PIOTR MATYS, SENIOR FX ANALYST, IN TOUCH CAPITAL MARKETS, POLAND.

"The rouble remains under the selling pressure in the current global environment dominated by concerns about China, which is Russia's most important trading partner."

"The sharp fall in Russia's current account surplus leaves the rouble more vulnerable to global sentiment. The CBR (Russian central bank) may have to raise interest rates further to cool down domestic demand and slow down imports to stabilize the rouble."