By Johann M Cherian

May 14 (Reuters) - Stocks and currencies across most developing economies were higher on Wednesday, as investors scoured for signs of new trade deals, while U.S. President Donald Trump's tour of the Gulf region was also closely monitored.

MSCI's emerging markets currencies index .MIEM00000CUS edged up 0.3% against the dollar.

The stocks gauge .MSCIEF rose 1.7% to touch a fresh seven- month high, primarily aided by upbeat quarterly reports out of Asia, such as e-commerce retailer JD.com 9618.HK, Tencent Music Entertainment 1698.HK and Taiwan's Foxconn 2317.TW.

Sentiment was also helped by relief after the U.S. signed agreements with China and the UK, signalling a potential de-escalation of trade tensions that rattled investor sentiment in April.

Thailand said on Wednesday it has told Washington that it will crack down on transshipments through its ports, buy more U.S. goods and improve local market access to avoid steep tariffs. The bhat THB= and local stocks .SETI were steady.

South Korea's deputy finance minister Choi Ji-young met with Assistant Secretary for International Finance at the U.S. Treasury, Robert Kaproth, to discuss the forex market on May 5. The won KRW= appreciated 1.6% and was last at 1,392 against the dollar, while stocks .KS11 closed up 1.2%.

India's trade minister Piyush Goyal is expected to lead a trade delegation to the U.S. starting on May 16. The rupee INR= was flat, while local stocks .NSEI, .BSESN were marginally higher.

TRUMP IN MIDDLE EAST

Focus was also on Trump in the Middle East, where he met with Syria's president in Saudi Arabia, after a surprise U.S. announcement that it would lift all sanctions on the Islamist-led government which is alleged to have links to Al Qaeda.

Saudi Arabia signed a $600 billion investment deal with the U.S., and U.S. chip companies Nvidia NVDA.O and Advanced Micro Devices AMD.O also signed partnerships. The riayal SAR= was flat and the oil exporter's stocks .TASI slipped, tracking weak crude prices.

"Ample sovereign wealth and foreign reserve buffers and relatively low debt levels should allow Saudi to cope with low oil prices," said Hasnain Malik, emerging and frontier markets strategist at Tellimer.

"Relative to Large EM peers, Saudi is cheaper versus historical average than most peers in Large (emerging markets) and (the Middle East and North African region) and structurally reforming faster than all of its Large EM commodity exporter peers."

Trump is scheduled to visit Qatar next and the country is also expected to announce hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in the U.S..

Romania's leu EURRON= was steady against the euro, ahead of a presidential election run-off due on Sunday where a hard-right candidate could win and raise uncertainties for investors.

In a minor relief for markets, the country sold $1.77 billion worth of bonds, more than triple its original offer.

Focus was also on potential Ukraine-Russia talks in Istanbul on Thursday, while Kyiv said it concluded procedures for implementation of a deal with the U.S. on exploiting minerals.

Ukraine's hard-currency bonds XS2895057177=TE, XS2895056526=TE and GDP warrants XS1303929894=TE dropped over one cent each on the dollar after the Kremlin said a Russian delegation would be in Istanbul on Thursday for possible direct peace talks with Kyiv.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he would attend talks with Russia this week only if Russian President Vladimir Putin was also there.

(Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)

((johann.mcherian@thomsonreuters.com;))