GLONGHUI, January 24 | Liu Jia, head of Asian investment strategy at Deutsche Bank's International Private Banking Department, said in an interview with this newspaper that the US economy should start slowing down in the first half of this year, and inflation is likely to fall. It is expected that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates in June and cut interest rates by 0.75% in total for the whole year. This will greatly benefit Asian assets, and the Hong Kong stock market will also benefit. It is expected that when dividends and returns are taken into account, the yield on Asian stocks this year is about 8% to 9%. Liu Jia said that US interest rate cuts will benefit some Hong Kong stocks that are more sensitive to capital costs and interest; he is more optimistic about mainland consumer-related stocks and science and technology innovation stocks. He stressed that they are still optimistic about the technology sector in the medium to long term, and within this sector, they are optimistic about leading Internet companies closely related to consumption. As for Hong Kong stocks such as real estate and banks, Liu Jia said that although real estate stocks may benefit from interest rate cuts in the US during the year, they may have a stabilizing effect on stock prices. He also mentioned that it is possible to focus on related sectors such as tourism, food, clothing, etc., especially those leading in the industry, especially the top three, which may actually be supported by continued positive performance. The Japanese stock market has repeatedly hit a 34-year high in recent months. Liu Jia believes that the Bank of Japan may start raising interest rates in April this year to break away from negative interest rates, and that the policy interest rate may increase to 0.25% at the end of the year. She believes that interest rate hikes will benefit the local banking industry. He also pointed out that even though the European and American economies landed softly in the first half of the year, it still had a great impact on Japanese exports. It is expected that the central bank will tend to maintain a weak yen. The yen may only appreciate slightly from year to year by the end of this year, or 146 yen per dollar.