Japan Housing Starts Fall 0.4% In January

(RTTNews) - Japan's housing starts decreased for the third straight month in January, data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism showed on Friday.

Housing starts dropped 0.4 percent yearly in January, slower than the 1.3 percent fall in December. Economists had expected a decrease of 1.6 percent.

The data indicated a decline in new construction across rented and built-for-sale categories, while increases were observed in owned and issued segments.

The seasonally adjusted annualized number of housing starts fell to 755,000 in January from 756,000 in December.

Data also showed that construction orders received by the big 50 contractors rose 5.7 percent annually in January, after a 20.2 percent surge a month ago.