Japan Industrial Output On Tap For Monday

(RTTNews) - Japan will on Monday see preliminary February numbers for industrial production, highlighting a busy day in Asia-Pacific economic activity.

Analysts expect output to have risen 0.5 percent on month and 10.1 percent on year following the 3.8 percent monthly gain and the 10.3 percent yearly increase in January.

Japan also will release February figures for housing starts, vehicle production and construction orders, well as March results for the Markit/JMMA manufacturing PMI.

Housing starts are expected to have gained 6.10 percent on year after climbing 12.3 percent in the previous month. Vehicle production jumped 14.5 percent in January, when construction orders also spiked 15.2 percent. The manufacturing PMI saw a score of 55.5 in February.

Australia will see February figures for private sector credit and new home sales, as well as the inflation forecast for March.

Private sector credit was up 0.4 percent on month and 4.1 percent on year in January, while new home sales added 0.5 percent on month. The inflation forecast for February was up 0.2 percent.

New Zealand will provide February data for building permits and money supply, and also see March results for business confidence and activity outlook.

Building permits were down 8.3 percent on month in January, while money supply climbed 7.0 percent on year. The business confidence survey saw a score of 70.8 in February, while the activity outlook came in at 58.5.

South Korea will release current account figures for February; in January, the current account surplus was $3.61 billion.

Malaysia will provide producer price data for February; in January, PPI was down 0.2 percent on month and up 2.6 percent on year.

Thailand will see February numbers for imports, exports and trade balance; in January, imports were worth $18.41 billion and exports were at $17.66 billion for a trade deficit of $0.75 billion.

Hong Kong will release February figures for retail sales; in January, sales were up 16.8 percent on year.

Finally, markets in Indonesia are closed on Monday in observance of the Hindu New Year, and will re-open on Tuesday.