MSCI’s index for EM stocks shed 1.1% by 8.50am, with heavyweight Chinese bluechips down 0.4%.
Hong Kong’s benchmark also lost 1.9%.
In the latest hit to consumer confidence in the world’s second-biggest economy, China’s consumer price index (CPI) fell at the sharpest pace in 13 months in February, while producer price deflation persisted.
“The very low readings are a result of holiday distortions and look set to ease going forward.
“Prices could have started to stabilise as well,” Citi analysts said in a note.
“Recovery of domestic demand could be the key to CPI. A material rebound of consumer confidence could still take a few more months, as it would depend on property stabilisation,” Citi said.
Beijing last week vowed greater efforts to boost consumption in the face of an escalating trade war with the US.
A gauge of EM currencies also eased 0.3%, with the yuan falling 0.3% in offshore trading.
Currencies in Central and Eastern Europe were broadly lower against the euro, with the Polish zloty weakening about 0.2%.
The Polish central bank’s March monetary policy decision is due later this week.
Elsewhere, Romania’s central election authority on Sunday barred far-right pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu from running in May’s presidential election re-run.
In Africa, South Africa’s rand kicked of the week down 0.6% against the dollar with a national budget speech due later this week.
The budget was postponed last month over disagreements within the country’s coalition government over increasing the value added tax by two percentage points.
Meanwhile, worries of a slowdown in the US economy have also been on investors’ radar recently.
US President Donald Trump declined to predict whether the country could face a recession amid the concerns about his tariff actions.
Trump’s tariffs have stoked market volatility recently, after the president late last week suspended the 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, which had come into effect on March 4.
Trump had initially announced said tariffs earlier this year and then postponed them by a month to early March.
A US consumer price reading due March 12 would be in the spotlight this week, as worries of an economic slowdown and Trump’s tariffs possibly stoking inflation have led to markets repricing their expectations of interest rate cuts.
Traders currently see around three 25 basis points worth of rate cuts by the end of the year, compared to almost two cuts seen at the start of 2025, according to LSEG data.