South Korea’s headline inflation topped 3% for a second consecutive month in March, remaining sticky and well above the central bank’s 2% target, the Wall Street Journal reported. The latest inflation print, which came ahead of the Bank of Korea’s rate-decision meeting next week, is likely to bolster the bank’s current stance to not rush for easing but stand pat for now before it starts rate cuts. The benchmark consumer-price index rose 3.1% from a year earlier, the same pace as in February, the country’s statistics office said on Tuesday.
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Resources Per Country
- Afghanistan
- Armenia
- Australia
- Azerbaijan
- Bangladesh
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- Cook Islands
- Cyprus
- Fiji
- Georgia
- Hong Kong
- India
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Macau
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Micronesia
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- North Korea
- Pakistan
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Turkey
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu
- Vietnam
The Reserve Bank of Australia now feels that risks around the outlook for the economy are slightly more balanced than earlier in the year, while signaling that it isn’t ruling any policy options in or out for now, the Wall Street Journal reported. In minutes of its March 18-19 policy meeting published Tuesday, the interest-rate setting board of the RBA said that while there are ongoing risks to inflation and weak economic growth, they are largely even.
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Thai retailer Central Group wants to take over some real estate assets from insolvent Austrian property company Signa, including KaDeWe in Germany and Selfridges in London, Reuters reported. Central Group is interested in Signa's entire luxury group, which also includes Alsterhaus in Hamburg, Oberpollinger in Munich, and Globus in Switzerland, according to a Business Insider report. The report said Central is already substantially invested in Signa's luxury holdings.
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Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Monday there were some speculative moves in the currency market that did not reflect economic fundamentals, repeating his warning against excessive yen declines, Reuters reported. "We will watch currency market developments with a strong sense of urgency, and will respond appropriately against excessive moves without ruling out any options," Suzuki told parliament.
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Japan's factory activity in March contracted for the 10th consecutive month though the downturn was the least pronounced in four months, helped by softer contractions in output and orders, a private-sector survey showed on Monday, Reuters reported. The final au Jibun Bank Japan manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) was at 48.2 in March, the highest level since November. That matched the flash reading and was better than February's 47.2, which marked the fastest pace of contraction in over 3-1/2 years.
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A private gauge showed China’s factory activity expanded in March, marking a fifth successive monthly improvement in the country’s manufacturing sector and reaching its highest level since February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported. The China Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 51.1 in March from 50.9 in February, according to data released Monday by Caixin Media Co. and S&P Global. A reading above 50 indicates that the manufacturing sector grew, while a reading below 50 indicates contraction.
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China’s home sales slump dragged on in March, signaling a much-hoped turnaround for the sector isn’t in sight yet, Bloomberg News reported. The value of new-home sales from the 100 biggest real estate companies slid about 46% from a year earlier to 358 billion yuan ($49.6 billion), following a 60% decline in February, according to preliminary data from China Real Estate Information Corp. China’s protracted property sales drought has weighed on many of the nation’s biggest builders and eroded the balance sheets of the largest state-owned banks as their bad loans swell.
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Turkey’s lira reversed earlier losses and surged against the dollar on Monday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated he’ll give his economic team more time to produce results despite facing an unprecedented rout at local elections over the weekend, Bloomberg News reported. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party suffered a defeat on Sunday, ceding control of many of Turkey’s cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, to the opposition.
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China's government devoted the week to a red carpet welcome for foreign executives to try to halt a retreat in corporate investment from a market once seen as the engine of global growth, Reuters reported. But many executives leave China with a shared caution: While things may not be getting worse, the risks of an expansion in China still outweigh the rewards, they say. In a series of high-profile events, Chinese officials pledged equal treatment for foreign firms, expressed confidence China will hit its 5% growth target this year and President Xi Jinping held an audience with 15 U.S.
A sentence from a months-old speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping has sparked speculation the central bank might start aggressively buying government bonds to support the economy, a stimulus measure China has long shunned, Reuters reported. But most analysts say the People's Bank of China (PBOC) will stick with traditional tools rather than resorting to massive liquidity injections through "quantitative easing" (QE), as some major economies such as Japan and the United States have done.