FX.co ★ Japan Household Data Due On Friday

On Friday, Japan is set to announce its household spending figures and data for its leading and coincident indexes for February, underlining a day of significant economic activity within the Asia-Pacific region.

The expectation is that household spending will increase by 0.5% monthly while seeing a yearly decline of 2.8% after a decrease of 2.1% and 6.3% in January on a month-to-month and year-to-year basis respectively. The leading index decreased by 0.1% in January on a monthly basis and the coincident index fell by 3.8%.

Meanwhile, Australia will provide data for exports, imports and trade balance for February. In January, imports grew by 1.3% and exports inflated by 1.6%, resulting in a trade surplus of A$11.027 billion.

South Korea is scheduled to announce its February data for its current account, which recorded a surplus of $3.05 billion in January.

Figures for retail sales in February will be released by Singapore. In January, retail sales declined by 0.7% monthly but increased by 1.3% annually.

Hong Kong will disclose its private sector PMI data for March from S&P Global; the index had a score of 49.7 in February.

Thailand will announce its data for consumer prices for March. In February, the overall inflation rate decreased by 0.77% annually and the core CPIU increased by an annual rate of 0.43%.

Lastly, due to the Ching Ming Festival, the markets in Taiwan and China will be closed on Friday and will resume operations on Monday.