aug 20 reuters  emerging market assets suffered further selling on friday with the equity index down 1 touching a new low for the year and putting it on course for its worst week in six months worries about the impact of chinese regulations both locally and globally as well as data showing a slowdown in growth especially from the world’s two biggest economies have hammered stocks this week rising cases of the coronavirus have prompted market experts to revisit yearend growth forecasts in the latest regulatory shakeup chinese state media said the national people’s congress passed a law on friday to protect online user data privacy chinese bluechips lost 19 hong kong where many chinese tech giants are listed lost 2 to hit early november lows and is on track for its worst week since the pandemicinduced crash of march 2020 russia’s moex is already about 25 away from record highs touched just two days ago while south africa’s main index has plunged almost 5 so far this week  its worst weekly loss since october also battering markets was the us federal reserve signalling that it may start tapering stimulus this year its september meeting will be scrutinised for more definitive clues “tapering is finally at our doorstep but we do not think that it will be overly disruptive for equity markets” strategists at citi said in a note on stocks in emerging emea markets “china remains our only duration overweight but we hedge currencies risk given weak economic data” with the us dollar at a 912 month high against major peers the em currencies index hit fourmonth lows  on course for its biggest weekly selloff in two months south africa’s rand the em bellwether currency languished at fivemonth lows down 09 on the day a reuters poll showed disruptions from new coronavirus variants and softer commodity prices should see economic growth in south africa slowing next year turkey’s lira fell 01 while russia’s rouble hit a onemonth low against the dollar on the moscow exchange china’s yuan touched threeweek lows as expected the central bank left its benchmark lending rate unchanged but that did little to dampen expectations for more stimulus as regulators raise pressure china evergrande vowed to resolve its debt issues financial markets are worried that any crisis at evergrande could ripple through china’s banking system as the company struggles to find the cash it needs to pay its many lenders and suppliers for graphic on emerging market fx performance in 2021 see tmsnrtrs2egbfvh for graphic on msci emerging index performance in 2021 see tmsnrtrs2ousndx