jan 24 reuters  south korean shares hit a 13month low on monday leading losses among asias emerging stock markets as risk appetite waned on fears the us federal reserve could adopt a more aggressive stance on policy tightening at its meeting later this week market participants were cautious ahead of the feds ratesetting federal open market committee meeting where some analysts have started to speculate it is possible though unlikely that interest rates will be hiked for the first time since the pandemic began equities in seoul ks11 dropped 15 to their lowest close since december 2020 while shares in mumbai nsei and jakarta jkse fell 18 and 1 respectively after major wall street indexes slumped at the end of last week central bankers in asia will certainly pay attention to the fed meeting the harder the fed hits the brakes the more monetary officials in the region will have to swerve to avoid skidding off the road frederic neumann hsbcs cohead of asian economics research said in a note central banks in asia have not been pressured to pursue interest rate hikes as aggressively as their european peers a stable yuan has provided some resilience to currencies in the region amid broad dollar strength and partly as a result inflation  while elevated has not veered out of control in most asian economies however singapores key price gauge climbed in december by its fastest pace in nearly eight years exceeding economist forecasts driven by a steep increase in air fares read more stocks in the citystate sti were down 04 while the local dollar edged higher the prospect of higher us interest rates has left regional policymakers needing to strike a balance between protecting their economies recovery while maintaining stability and stemming potential outflows that could weaken their current account surpluses the dollar index which measures the greenback against six major peers was steady at 95783 while the yuan gained 01 asian currencies were weaker indias rupee  south koreas won and the philippine peso weakened between 02 and 05 meanwhile a reuters poll found the south korean economy likely accelerated in the last quarter buoyed by strong exports and investments but an economic slowdown in china and surging covid19 cases pose a significant risk read more  indian shares nsei fall as much as 19 to lowest since dec 31 2021  china evergrande 3333hk shares jump as much as 134 a day after the embattled developer said it would appoint an official from a unit of state asset manager china cinda asset management 1359hk to its board read more reporting by harish sridharan in bengaluru editing by subhranshu sahu