Thursday 7 August 2008

Japanese, UK economies deteriorating

Japan may have entered a recession. From Reuters:

Japan's longest post-war economic expansion may be over, government figures showed on Wednesday, as an index of indicators including industrial output and corporate profits sank in June...

The Cabinet Office said the economy was "deteriorating", adding that this was a provisional judgment that the economy is likely in a recession...

The index of coincident economic indicators fell 1.6 points to a preliminary 101.7 in June, the government said...

The index of leading economic indicators fell 1.7 points to a preliminary 91.2 in June from 92.9 in May.

Reuters reported yesterday that it is not much better in the UK.

The economy grew at its weakest pace in more than three years in the three months to July -- just 0.1 percent, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said...

The consumer mood soured last month at its sharpest rate on record to a series low, according to the Nationwide building society which has been tracking consumer confidence since 2004.

Car registrations slumped 13 percent on the year last month, the biggest fall since late-2006, according to industry data.

And the number of Britons finding permanent jobs fell at its fastest rate since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation/KPMG said...

The British Retail Consortium said on Wednesday food prices in July were up some 9.5 percent on the year.

And we learnt from Bloomberg yesterday that German factory orders fell for a seventh month in June.

Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, declined 2.9 percent from May, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said today. That's the biggest drop since July 2007. Economists expected a gain of 0.4 percent, the median of 39 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey showed. Orders fell 6.1 percent from a year earlier.

No comments:

Post a Comment