Japan Data On Tap For Friday

(RTTNews) - Japan is scheduled to release a batch of data on Friday, headlining a busy day in Asia-Pacific economic activity. On tap are December figures for unemployment, industrial production, housing starts and construction orders, as well as January figures for consumer confidence and for Tokyo inflation.

The jobless rate is tipped to rise to 3.0 percent from 2.9 percent in November, while the job-to-applicant ratio is called steady at 1.06. Industrial production in November was down 0.5 percent on month and 3.9 percent on year, while housing starts sank 3.7 percent on year and construction orders dropped an annual 4.7 percent.

The consumer confidence index had a score of 31.8 in December, while Tokyo overall inflation fell 1.3 percent on year and core CPI lost an annual 0.9 percent.

Australia will see Q4 figures for producer prices and December numbers for private sector credit. In Q3, producer prices were up 0.4 percent on quarter and down 0.4 percent on year. In November, Private sector credit rose 0.1 percent on month and 1.7 percent on year.

The Philippines will release December data for producer prices; in November, prices were down 3.4 percent on year.

South Korea will provide December data for industrial production and retail sales. In November, industrial production was up 0.3 percent on month and 0.5 percent on year, while retail sales fell 1.0 percent on month and 1.5 percent on year.

Singapore will see December numbers for bank lending, producer prices and import and export prices, as well as Q4 results for its business confidence index.

In November, bank lending was at SGD676.7 billion, while producer prices fell 9.4 percent on year, import prices gained 5.8 percent on year and export prices sank an annual 6.6 percent. The business confidence index score was -3.

Taiwan will release an advance estimate for Q4 gross domestic product, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 3.61 percent - down from 3.92 percent in Q3.

Hong Kong will provide an advance estimate for Q4 gross domestic product; in Q4, GDP was up 2.8 percent on quarter and down 3.5 percent on year.

Thailand will see November numbers for retail sales and December figures for unemployment, current account and its coincident index. In October, retail sales tumbled 6.8 percent on year. In November, the jobless rate was 2.0 percent, the current account deficit was $1.5 billion and the coincident index score was 126.1.