Japan Data Due On Thursday

(RTTNews) - Japan is scheduled to release a raft of data on Thursday, highlighting a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. On tap are March figures for industrial production, retail sales, construction orders and housing starts, as well as April results for its consumer confidence index.

In February, industrial production was down 2.0 percent on month and retail sales slipped an annual 0.2 percent. Construction orders surged 42.7 percent on year and housing starts sank an annual 4.9 percent. The household confidence index had a score of 33.3 in March.

South Korea will provide March figures for industrial production and retail sales; in February, production was up 5.4 percent on month and down 2.2 percent on year, while sales were flat on a monthly basis.

China will see April results of the manufacturing, non-manufacturing and composite indexes from the National Bureau of Statistics, plus the manufacturing PMI from Caixin. In March, the NBS scores were 50.4, 50.1 and 50.5, respectively, while the Caixin reading was 50.8.

Australia will release Q1 numbers for import and export prices, plus March data for private sector credit. In the previous three months, import prices were up 0.9 percent on quarter and export prices rose 3.2 percent. Private sector credit is expected to see no change at 0.6 percent on month.

Taiwan will provide preliminary Q1 numbers for gross domestic product; in the previous three months, GDP was up 12.65 percent on year.

Thailand will release March data for industrial production, current account, import, exports and trade balance. In February, production dipped 0.04 percent on year, while the current account surplus was $2.10 billion. Imports surged an annual 31.7 percent and exports climbed 10.6 percent for a trade surplus of $0.60 billion.