TOKYO: Tokyo shares ended higher in light trading on Thursday, as millions in Britain began voting in a too-close-to-call referendum on the country’s future in the European Union. Japan will be among the first major equity markets to react to results, which are expected to start filtering through around noon local time (0300 GMT) on Friday. Traders said a vote to remain would likely spark selling of safe-haven assets such as the yen, which is a plus for Japanese exporters. “The Nikkei may be one of the major non-European beneficiaries of (a) ‘Remain’ vote win,” Angus Nicholson, a Melbourne-based market analyst at IG, said in a commentary. “A ‘Remain’ win should help see further yen weakness, which would help Japanese equities recover much of their past two weeks of losses. “Expectations are also growing for some sort of further easing from the Bank of Japan in July now that the Brexit vote is out of the way.” On Thursday, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 1.07 per cent, or 172.63 points, to close at 16,238.35, rebounding from a loss the previous day.