Weak growth in Japanese and US economies, China's remains robust

On Tuesday, Japan's Cabinet Office had lowered its assessment of the Japanese economy. From AFP/CNA:

Japan downgraded its monthly economic assessment on Tuesday for the first time in 20 months, citing the rapid rise of the yen and a slowdown of exports and production...

Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet Office in its October report said that "the economic movements appear to be pausing recently," a turnaround from last month when it said the economy "continues picking up".

The Federal Reserve's Beige Book assessment of the US economy released on Wednesday was not much brighter. From Reuters:

The economy grew sluggishly in recent weeks, with businesses struggling to raise prices and reluctant to hire and invest, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday...

"National economic activity continued to rise, albeit at a modest pace," the Fed said in the report, which was prepared its next policy-setting session on November 2-3.

But China reported yet another strong economic performance in the third quarter. From AFP/CNA:

China said Thursday its economy posted robust, albeit slightly slower, growth in the third quarter after a crackdown on soaring property prices and bank lending had less impact than expected...

Gross domestic product expanded by 9.6 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, beating analyst forecasts for 9.5 per cent growth, according to the NBS data.

The figure marked a decline from the 10.3 per cent growth in the second quarter and the blistering 11.9 per cent in the first three months of 2010, but could ease concerns that Asia's top economy was heading for a sharp slowdown.

The closely watched consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, rose 3.6 per cent in September from a year earlier, the fastest pace since October 2008 and was 0.6 per cent higher than the previous month.