The day saw volumes recover after the prior week’s subdued activity, but most of the transactions appeared to be on the sell side.

Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.57% after a holiday on Friday, when the nation held an election that gave the People’s Action Party of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong a large parliamentary majority.

The central bank is expected to announce a lift-off before next year, but its decision has been muddied by the latest global volatility caused by concerns about China’s economy and after Beijing announced a shock devaluation of its yuan last month.

Speaking on a radio show yesterday, the New People’s Party chairwoman and lawmaker said: “In theory, if you look at the structure of the Basic Law, naturally the chief executive enjoys a supreme position in our constitutional structure”.

On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI surged 7.56 points or 0.47% to 1,611.16 and Jakarta Composite was up by 11.62 points or 0.27% to 4,372.09. Investment in the first eight months also increased at the slowest pace since 2000.

On the economic front, Japan’s industrial production fell a seasonally adjusted 0.8 percent in July from the previous month, revised from the 0.6 percent decrease reported earlier, official figures showed.

A lady passes by a store window in Jinan, east China’s Shandong province on March 9, 2007. He also said that with the retail and real estate sectors performing relatively well, slowing export growth and GDP growth did not mean that China’s economy faced a crisis.

Industrial output missed economists’ forecasts, rising 6.1pc in August from a year earlier, compared with the 6.5pc growth expected by the markets. And China’s Ministry of Finance last week pledged to speed up investment in new infrastructure in the remaining months of 2015. “Investors may expect more stimulus in the pipeline, which could provide some support to Chinese equities”.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index opened higher, as the Chinese government on Sunday released plans to reform state-owned companies, including partial privatization and industry consolidation.

Government plans on restructuring of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), including allowing private investment, appeared to offer little for investors to feed off.

“We will make more efforts in reforming “zombie enterprises”, long-time loss-making enterprises and in disposing of those low-efficient and non-performing assets”, Zhang said. State media additionally Monday that the federal government would channel non-state capital into sectors together with assets, logistics and telecommunications.