* MSCI Asia-Pacific index gains 0.5 percent

* Spreadbetters expect European stocks to open slightly lower

* Nikkei up on expectations for Japan delaying tax hike

* Dollar index hovers near 2-week high after upbeat U.S. data

* Stronger dollar, soft China data weigh on industrial metals

By Shinichi Saoshiro

TOKYO, May 16 (Reuters) - Buoyant Japanese stocks led Asian stocks to modest gains on Monday, helping to offset some of the gloom from soft Chinese data, while the dollar firmed against the euro and yen after receiving a boost from upbeat U.S. indicators.

Spreadbetters saw a slightly lower open for Britain's FTSE , Germany's DAX and France's CAC in the wake of the soft Chinese indicators, which have added to doubts about whether the world's second-largest economy is stabilising.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.5 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.2 percent, Australian stocks advanced 0.6 percent and South Korea's Kospi was little changed.

Tokyo's Nikkei climbed 0.6 percent, buoyed by a weekend media report that Japan was poised to delay a sales tax hike set for April 2017. Hopes for more government fiscal stimulus also favoured Japanese shares.

It held some of its early gains despite a denial by Japan's top government spokesman on Monday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has decided to postpone the tax hike.

"There is no such fact. It is utterly groundless," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference, repeating that the government will increase the levy as planned unless there was a financial crisis on the scale of the Lehman Brothers collapse or a major natural disaster.

Shanghai stocks initially fell on the downbeat China data released over the weekend, but pared the losses to trade 0.3 percent higher after the country's securities regulator denied media reports it was cracking down on fundraising and mergers and acquisitions in certain sectors.

Indicators released on Saturday showed China's investment, factory output and retail sales all grew more slowly than expected in April, raising fears that a bounce seen in March is fizzling.

"Chinese data over the weekend managed to miss market expectations for every single release: credit growth, industrial production, retail sales, and fixed-asset investment," wrote Angus Nicholson, market analyst at IG in Melbourne.

"The miss on the activity front wasn't a huge surprise given we already saw a levelling off in the PMIs, but the dramatic slowing in credit growth will be raising some red flags in the already-reversing commodities space."