{"id":29172,"date":"2023-05-01T00:45:06","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T00:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/japans-factory-activity-contracts\/"},"modified":"2023-05-01T00:46:01","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T00:46:01","slug":"japans-factory-activity-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/japans-factory-activity-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan’s factory activity contracts at slower pace in April – PMI"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s factory activity contracted for the sixth straight month in April, but the details of a private survey released on Monday showed the manufacturing sector was edging towards stabilisation amid a slower decline in new orders.<\/p>\n

The final au Jibun Bank Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index was up slightly at 49.5 in April from March’s 49.2, and matched the flash reading.<\/p>\n

New orders contracted at the softest pace since July while remaining below the 50.0 threshold for a tenth consecutive month as inbound demand stabilised moderately.<\/p>\n

Factory output also contracted for a tenth consecutive month, with some manufacturers citing that raw materials shortages had weighed on production.<\/p>\n

The final PMI reading comes after government data last week showed Japanese factory output rising slightly in March while a survey of manufacturers forecast a 4.1% increase in April.<\/p>\n

Japan’s economy is recovering moderately from the COVID-driven downturn, but there is a rise in bankruptcies, a Japanese government monthly economic report said last week, while reiterating a warning against global financial volatility in response to the recent Western bank collapses.<\/p>\n

Input price inflation eased to its slowest pace since August 2021, although prices were still relatively high to due rising costs for raw materials. <\/p>\n

Those cost pressures were evident in output price inflation, which expanded at the strongest rate to a five-month high as companies sought to secure profits through higher selling prices.<\/p>\n

Supplier delivery delays, which have been below the 50.0 threshold since February 2020, were the least prevalent in the current sequence for April, the survey showed.<\/p>\n

“Firms often attributed this to the weaknesses in demand, however, which had reduced pressure on material availability,” said economist Usamah Bhatti at S&P Global Market Intelligence, which compiles the survey.<\/p>\n

Employment grew at the strongest pace since October, while business confidence remained robust and little changed from March. <\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Eimi Yamamitsu; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)<\/p>\n

\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ400B4-VIEWIMAGE\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s factory activity contracted for the sixth straight month in April, but the details of a private survey released on Monday showed the manufacturing sector was edging towards stabilisation amid a slower decline in new orders. The final au Jibun Bank Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index was up slightly at 49.5 in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ400B4-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29174,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29172\/revisions\/29174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}