* U.S. manufacturing, private payrolls data support sentiment
* European factories also seeing buoyant growth
* World stock prices at record high, Nikkei tops 20,000
* Oil near 3-week low on glut worries
* European shares seen rising 0.6-0.7 pct
By Hideyuki Sano
TOKYO, June 2 (Reuters) - Global stocks hit a record high on Friday and Asian markets rose to their best levels in more than two years as upbeat data on U.S. manufacturing and employment and buoyant European factory growth boosted investor optimism.
The MSCI ACWI, an index of 46 stock markets in the world, rose 0.2 percent to a record high. It was on track for a gain of 0.6 percent for the week and close to 11 percent for the year to date.
European shares were also expected to advance, with spread-betters looking at gains of 0.6-0.7 percent for Germany's DAX, France's CAC and Britain's FTSE.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.6 percent, while Japan's Nikkei rose 1.6 percent, topping the psychologically important 20,000-point mark and taking the benchmark to its highest level since August 2015.
"Market sentiment is very good. The strength in Wall Street shares will be a tailwind for the Nikkei as well," said Masahiro Ichikawa, senior strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management.
Wall Street's volatility index, which measures implied volatility of stocks and is often seen as investors' fear gauge, fell below 10, near a decade-low touched last month, in another sign of investors' confidence that markets will be stable at least for the time being.
The Institute for Supply Management said its barometer of U.S. factory activity edged up to 54.9 last month from 54.8 in April, while ADP reported private payrolls grew by 253,000 last month, beating analysts' median forecast of a 185,000 increase.
Those numbers offset weakness in auto sales and set markets up for solid government payroll data due at 1230 GMT.
"The U.S. slowdown in the first quarter was due to soft consumption. But consumer spending has started to recover already in March," said Haruka Kazama, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute.
"Labour market conditions are improving as we can see from yesterday's ADP data, which also supports consumption."
Following the latest data, the Atlanta Federal Reserve upgraded its closely-watched GDP Now forecast for April-June growth to a 4.0 percent annualised pace from 3.8 percent.
Further signs of solid U.S. growth led traders to almost fully price in the chance that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its June 13-14 policy meeting. They also supported the outlook for possibly another hike by the year-end, likely in September.