Financial News: Japan Data, Rate Decision On Tap For Friday

Japan Data, Rate Decision On Tap For Friday

(RTTNews) - The Bank of Japan will wrap up its monetary policy meeting on Friday and then announce its decision on interest rates, highlighting a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. The BoJ is widely expected to keep its benchmark lending rate steady at 1.00 percent.

Japan will also see a raft of other data, including June figures for unemployment, industrial production, retail sales, construction orders and housing starts, plus July numbers for Tokyo inflation.

The jobless rate (2.5 percent) and the jobs-to-application rate (1.17) are called unchanged. Industrial production is seen higher by 0.7 percent on month, up from 0.1 percent in May. Sales are called higher by an annual 3.1 percent, easing from 5.3 percent a month earlier.

Construction orders are expected to fall 4.1 percent on year after slumping 6.7 percent in the previous month. Housing Starts are tipped to climb an annual 13.2 percent, down from 33.9 percent in May. Tokyo overall inflation was up 1.7 percent on year in June and core CPI rose 1.6 percent.

South Korea will provide June figures for industrial production and retail sales. Production is expected to rise 2.9 percent on month and 1.5 percent on year after slipping 3.0 percent on month and 0.9 percent on year in May. Sales were up 0.1 percent in May.

Taiwan will see preliminary Q2 numbers for gross domestic product; in the three months prior, GDP was up 14.55 percent on year.

China will see July results for the manufacturing, non-manufacturing and composite indexes from the National Bureau of Statistics; in June, their scores were 50.3, 50.2 and 50.6, respectively.

Hong Kong will provide preliminary Q2 data for gross domestic product; in the previous three months, GDP was up 2.9 percent on quarter and 5.9 percent on year.

Thailand will release June figures for imports, exports, trade balance and current account. In May, imports surged 34.5 percent on year and exports were up 9.8 percent for a trade deficit of $2.60 billion. The current account deficit was $6.4 billion.

Australia will see June figures for housing credit and Q2 data for producer prices. In May, housing credit was up 0.5 percent, while producer price inputs were up 0.4 percent on quarter and 3.0 percent on year in the three months prior.

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