Japan's August core machinery orders fall 2.2% month-on-month

[TOKYO] Japan's core machinery orders fell 2.2 per cent in August from the previous month, Cabinet Office data showed on Wednesday, in a sign of fragility in capital expenditure.

The fall in core orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as an indicator of capital spending in the coming six to nine months, compared with a 5.5 per cent decline forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. It followed a 4.9 per cent increase in July.

Compared with a year earlier, core orders, which excludes ships and orders from the electric power utilities, increased 11.6 per cent in August, versus a 6.5 per cent gain expected by economists.

REUTERS