By Gina Lee

Investing.com – The dollar was down on Friday morning in Asia, with investors towards riskier assets as fears of the omicron COVID-19 variant’s virulence continue to fade.

That tracks the greenback relative to a basket currency fell 0.02% by 10:00 PM ET (2:00 AM GMT)

The pair inched down 0.03% to 114.35, with Japan’s cabinet approving a for the year starting in April 2022. According to the country’s Finance Ministry, Japan plans JPY107.6 trillion yen ($941.26 billion) in overall spending for the year ending March 2023, a 0.9% increase from the current year’s initial budget.

Meanwhile, data released earlier in the day showed that Japan’s grew 0.5% year-on-year in November.

Both the pair fell by 0.13 to 0.7232, and both were down 0.14 to 0.6815.

The pair inched up 0.01% to 6.3702, with the People’s Bank of China setting a weaker-than-forecast yuan fixing, at 6.3692 per dollar, for a record 15th day on Friday. The longest streak of lower-than-expected Yuan fixations since 2018 surveys started is this one. It is based on the instances where the rate has been even fractionally below estimates.

Both the pair climbed 0.03% up to 1.3409.

Volumes were very low before the holidays. The U.S. markets were closed, while other markets like Hong Kong had to close early.

Investors cheered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use approval for Molnupiravir, Merck & Co . Inc.’s (NYSE) COVID-19 tablet, Thursday.

U.K. research that found omicron infection are less likely than other infections to cause hospitalizations also helped to boost sentiment. The study also noted that it could still lead to serious complications due its infectiousness.

Meanwhile, a laboratory study showed that two doses and a booster of Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s vaccine did not produce sufficient levels of neutralizing antibodies to protect against omicron.

Elsewhere in Asia Pacific, authorities locked down the western Chinese city of Xi’an, the biggest such move since the pandemic started in early 2020. The city’s 13 million residents were told to remain in their homes and to designate one person to go out every other day for necessities, in a bid to curb China’s latest COVID-19 outbreak.