TOKYO (Reuters) – Production at Japan’s factories fell for the third straight month in November.
Japanese manufacturers continue to be held back by faltering global demand for machinery and a deteriorating global economic outlook. Industrial production fell 0.1 percent from the previous month, preliminary government data showed on Wednesday. It was thus slightly above the average market forecast by minus 0.3 percent. It was the third monthly decline after a revised 3.2 percent decline in October and a 1.7 percent drop in September.
In particular, the 7.9 percent decline in production of machines weighed on the overall index. The automotive sector, which is important for Japan, also collapsed by 0.8 percent. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) lowered its estimate of industrial production for the second straight month as “output continues to weaken”. Manufacturers polled by METI expect production to rise 2.8 percent in December and fall 0.6 percent in January, the data showed.
(Report by Kantaro Komiya, written by Katharina Loesche. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and economics) or [email protected] (for companies and markets).)