Japan Feb core machinery orders rise 1.5% m-o-m: govt

[TOKYO] Japan's core machinery orders rose 1.5 per cent in February from the previous month, government data showed on Wednesday, underscoring a gradual pick-up in capital expenditure.

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, was below the 2.7 per cent gain expected by economists in a Reuters poll.

It followed a 3.2 per cent decline in January, the Cabinet Office data showed.

Compared with a year earlier, core orders, which exclude ships and orders from the electric power utilities, grew 5.6 per cent in February, after an 8.2 per cent slide in the previous month.

REUTERS