Japan Data On Tap For Friday

(RTTNews) - Japan will release a raft of data on Friday, headlining a bust day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. On tap are January figures for inflation, household spending and unemployment, plus the consumer confidence index for February.

The overall inflation rate is expected to rise 0.4 percent on year, up from 0.3 percent in December. Core CPI is called flat after easing 0.2 percent in the previous month.

Household spending is expected to hold steady at -0.3 percent on year, while the jobless rate is expected to sink to 3.0 percent from 3.1 percent a month earlier.

The consumer confidence index is tipped to show a score of 43.5, up from 43.2 in January.

Japan also will see February figures for the services and composite PMIs from Nikkei; in January, their scores were 51.9 and 52.3, respectively.

Hong Kong and Singapore also will see February PMIs from Nikkei; in January, they were at 49.9 and 51.6, respectively.

Australia will see February results for the Performance of Service Index from AiG; in January; the index score was 54.5.

South Korea will release February numbers for consumer prices and January data for current account.

In January, overall inflation was up 0.9 percent on month and 2.0 percent on year, while core CPI added 0.6 percent on month and 1.5 percent on year. The current account surplus in December was $7.87 billion.

Malaysia will provide January data for imports, exports and trade balance. In December, imports were worth 66.8 billion ringgit and exports were at 75.6 billion ringgit for a trade surplus of 8.7 billion ringgit.

China will see February data for the services and composite PMIs from Caixin; in January, their scores were 53.1 and 52.2, respectively.

New Zealand will see February figures for the commodity price index from ANZ; in January, the index eased 0.1 percent.