Chinese economic data, Japanese GDP misses expectations

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– Xavier Ong

Sayori Shirai, a professor at Keio University, said Japan’s GDP in the April-June quarter missed expectations, in part due to higher prices.

Consumption growth has not been strong despite the easing of Covid restrictions because gasoline, utilities and food prices are “too expensive,” she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” program.

She said people go to restaurants and amusement parks, but high prices discourage spending.

On the other hand, capital spending was higher than the markets had expected, but Shirai said this is not surprising.

“I think that was kind of expected because the January-March number was negative, and we know that big companies need to spend a lot of money on capital expenditures because of AI and digitization,” she said.

– Abigail Ng

China’s factory and consumer data for July fell short of estimates, According to official data.

Industrial production grew 3.8%, less than the 4.6% expected in a Reuters poll and slightly less than the 3.9% figure reported in June.

Retail sales rose 2.7% in July compared to the same period in 2021, below the 5% growth forecast.

– Abigail Ng, Evelyn Cheng

The People’s Bank of China reduced its one-year medium-term lending facility on 400 billion yuan ($59.3 billion) in loans to some financial institutions by 10 basis points to 2.75%, according to an announcement on the central bank’s website.

According to Reuters, all 32 respondents in last week’s survey expected the medium-term lending facility rate to remain flat.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) also lowered the seven-day reverse repo rate by 10 basis points to 2%.

– Abigail Ng

Preliminary estimates showed that Japan’s annual gross domestic product grew 2.2% in the April-June quarter compared to the previous quarter.

That’s less than the expected 2.5% increase based on expectations in a Reuters poll.

– Abigail Ng