Japanese machine orders rise

Japanese machinery orders, an indicator of how much the country’s companies are spending, rose 1.4% in February from a month earlier, turning to positive for the first time in five months.

The Cabinet Office said today that core private sector machinery orders, which excludes orders from electric power companies and shipbuilders due to their volatility, rose to 728.1bn yen (€5.48bn in February.

The result was better than the 8.1% decline predicted in a Kyodo News survey of economists, and was also an improvement from the 3.2% fall in January.