By Shashwat Chauhan

Oct 18 (Reuters) -A gauge of emerging market stocks rose on Friday, boosted by heavyweight China and Hong Kong shares after the Chinese central bank introduced funding schemes to boost its stock market, while a softer dollar helped lift most currencies.

Chinese equities jumped after its central bank kicked off two funding schemes that will initially pump as much as 800 billion yuan ($112.38 billion) into the stock market through newly-created monetary policy tools.

The blue-chip CSI 300 .CSI300 and the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC advanced 3.6% and 2.9% respectively, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI closed up more than 3%.

MSCI's index for emerging market stocks .MSCIEF was up 1.7% as of 0825 GMT, while a gauge for currencies .MIEM00000CUS edged 0.2% higher, though both were headed for weekly losses.

EM assets remained under pressure all through this week as investors bet on more stimulus measures from China to aid its faltering property sector, with some recent announcements failing to meet the ever growing expectations.

"The scale of the easing measures is not sufficient to turn around development in the housing market and there has not been any substantial direct support so far for consumers," Tuuli Koivu, chief economist at Nordea, wrote in a note.

"We read the recent policy documents more as a continuation of what Xi Jinping has previously tried: boosting confidence by talk but at the same time tightening the conditions for the private sector both domestically and in terms of geopolitics."

Separately, data showed China's economy grew at the slowest pace since early 2023 in the third quarter.

Most currencies globally were pinned this week as the dollar remained firm after data showed that the U.S. economy remained strong, and on improving odds that former President Donald Trump could retake the White House in the upcoming elections.

Trump's trade policies call for hefty tariffs on imported goods, which analysts expect to be inflationary.

Currencies in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) were largely muted against the euro a day after the European Central Bank (ECB) opted to cut interest rates by 25-basis-points, as expected.

Against the dollar, most were higher as the dollar weakened globally. FRX/

South Africa's rand ZAR=D3 gained 0.5%, while China's yuan CNH= appreciated 0.3% in offshore trading.

EM equities saw their first weekly outflow in 20 weeks in the week till Wednesday, while debt saw inflows for the fifth straight week, according to a report by Bank of America.

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Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne

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