Japan Dec core machinery orders rise 6.7% month-on-month: Govt

[TOKYO] Japan's core machinery orders rose 6.7 per cent in December from the previous month, swinging from the prior month's decline, in a tentative sign of pickup in capital expenditure, government data showed on Thursday.

The rise in the core orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as an indicator of capital spending in the coming six to nine months, exceeded the 3.1 per cent gain expected by economists in a Reuters poll.

It followed a 5.1 per cent decline in November, the Cabinet Office data showed.

Manufacturers surveyed by the Cabinet Office forecast that core orders will rise 3.3 per cent in January-March from the previous quarter, after a 0.2 per cent decrease in the final three months of last year.

Compared with a year earlier, core orders, which exclude ships and orders from the electric power utilities, grew 6.7 per cent in December, the data showed.

REUTERS