— Japan Dec Core Machinery Orders +1.7% M/M Vs Nov -3.0%
— Japan Dec Machine Orders Weaker Than MNI Consensus +5.0%
— Japan Q1 Core Machinery Orders Seen +2.7% Q/Q
— Japan Oct-Dec Core Machinery Orders -6.9% Q/Q Vs Govt F’cast -9.8%
— Japan Dec Machinery Orders Post 1st Rise in 4 Months
— Japan Dec Core Machine Orders Ex-Handsets -0.9% M/M Vs Nov +0.8%
— Japan Dec Core Machinery Orders -1.6% Y/Y Vs Nov +11.6%
— Japan Dec Core Machinery Orders Post 1st Y/Y Fall in 6 Mths
TOKYO (MNI) – Japan’s core private-sector machinery orders rose for
the first time in four months in December and they are expected to
extend their growth in the first quarter, as the economy moves out of a
temporary lull, data from the Cabinet Office showed on Thursday.
The headline core machinery orders rose a seasonally adjusted 1.7%
in December following declines of 3.0% in November, 1.4% in October and
10.3% in September.
The December core figure came in weaker than the 5.0% m/m rise
expected in the median forecast in a MNI survey of economists.
Core machinery orders, which exclude volatile demand from electric
utilities and for ships, are forecast to rise 2.7% in the first quarter
from the previous three months, the first rise in two quarters,
according to a survey of companies by the Cabinet Office.
In the October-December quarter, core private-sector machinery
orders, which are viewed as a leading indicator of corporate capital
investment, fell 6.9% from the previous quarter, compared with the
initial projection for -9.8%.
In December, core private machinery orders fell 1.6% from a year
earlier following +11.6% in November, posting the first fall in six
months.
The Cabinet Office maintained its longer-term assessment, saying:
“Machinery orders are picking up but there are weak spots in the
non-manufacturing sector.”
“We didn’t consider upgrading our view because while orders for the
manufacturing sector stays on an uptrend, those for the
non-manufacturing sector remain weak, as seen in our January-March
forecast,” a Cabinet Office official said.
Core private orders minus mobile handsets, a fairly new reading
used as a guide to the underlying orders trend, fell 0.9% m/m in
December following a 0.8% rise in November, posting the first fall in
three months.
In another sign of an economic recovery from what appears to be
temporary dip in the fourth quarter of 2010, the latest government data
showed that production at the nation’s factories and mines rose a
seasonally adjusted 3.1% in December from the previous month, bringing
the industrial output index up to 94.6, the highest since 94.8 marked in
July 2010.
Japanese exports also rose 13.0% in December from a year earlier to
Y6.11 trillion, faster than a 9.1% rise in November, as shipments to
China hit a record high of Y1.285 trillion in the final month of 2010.
tokyo@marketnews.com
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