Mixed economic data for Asia but OECD sees positive change in momentum

There were mixed data from Asia over the last few days.

On Saturday, China reported a huge trade deficit of $31.48 billion for February. Exports rose 18.4 percent from the previous year while imports surged 39.6 percent.

On Monday, India reported that industrial production rose 6.8 percent year-on-year in January, accelerating sharply from 2.5 percent in December.

Also on Monday, Japan reported that core machinery orders rose 3.4 percent in January but the consumer confidence index fell 0.5 point to 39.5 in February.

Further indication of weakness in Japan came on Tuesday, with the tertiary index reported to have fallen 1.7 percent in January.

Nevertheless, Japan, together with the US, are seen by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as the drivers of a positive change in momentum in its latest report on composite leading indicators for the OECD economies.

The CLI for the OECD area rose to 100.9 in January from 100.5 in December. The CLI for the US rose to 102.5 from 101.8, the CLI for Japan rose to 102.6 from 102.1 and the CLI for the euro area rose to 98.7 from 98.5.