Chinese Data Due On Monday

(RTTNews) - China is scheduled to release a raft of data on Monday, headlining a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. On tap are February figures for house prices, fixed asset investment, industrial production, retail sales and unemployment.

In January, house prices were up 3.9 percent on year, while FAI rose 2.9 percent, industrial output gained 7.3 percent, retail sales added 4.6 percent and the jobless rate was 5.2 percent.

Japan will provide January figures for core machine orders and its tertiary industry index. Machine orders are tipped to fall 5.5 percent on month and 0.2 percent on year after gaining 5.2 percent on month and 11.8 percent on year in December. The tertiary industry index was down 0.4 percent on month in December.

New Zealand will see February results for the Performance of Service Index from BusinessNZ; in January, the index score was 47.9.

Singapore will release Q4 data for unemployment with forecasts suggesting a jobless rate of 3.2 percent - down from 3.6 percent in the previous three months.

Indonesia will provide February figures for imports, exports and trade balance. Imports are predicted to climb 12.6 percent on year after sliding 6.49 percent in January. Exports are called higher by an annual 8.73 percent after jumping 12.24 percent in the previous month. The trade surplus is pegged at $2.21 billion, up from $1.96 billion a month earlier.

Thailand will see January unemployment data; in December, the jobless rate was 1.5 percent.