Japan March core machinery orders rise 2.9 percent month-on-month: government

• REUTERS

• MAY 17, 2015, 8:05 PM
• 1

Thomson ReutersCranes are parked in a company compound in Tokyo

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's core machinery orders increased 2.9 percent in March from the previous month, rising for the first time in two months, the Cabinet Office said on Monday, in a sign of a pick-up in business investment.

The rise in core orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as an indicator of capital spending in the coming six to nine months, compared with the median estimate of a 1.8 percent increase in a Reuters poll of economists.

It followed a revised 1.4 percent drop in February.

Companies surveyed by the Cabinet Office forecast that core orders, which exclude those of ships and electric power utilities, will fall 7.4 percent in the current quarter.

In January-March, core orders rose 6.3 percent from the prior three months.

Compared with a year earlier, core orders in March rose 2.6 percent, versus a 7.2 percent decline forecast by economists.

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Chris Gallagher)