Japan Interest Rate Decision On Tap For Tuesday

(RTTNews) - The Bank of Japan will wrap up its monetary policy meeting on Tuesday an then announce its decision on interest rates, highlighting a very busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. The BoJ is widely expected to keep its benchmark lending rate unchanged at the record low -0.10 percent.

Japan also will see September figures for unemployment, retail sales, industrial production, housing starts and construction orders, as well as October results for the household confidence index.

The jobless rate is expected to ease to 2.6 percent from 2.7 percent in August, with the jobs-to-applicant ratio improving to 1.30 from 1.29. Retail sales are tipped to rise 5.9 percent on year, slowing from 7.0 percent in the previous month.

Industrial production is expected to add 2.5 percent on month after slipping 0.7 percent a month earlier. Construction orders were down 4.3 percent on year in August and housing starts slumped an annual 9.4 percent. The household confidence index is expected to see a score of 35.1, easing from 35.2 in September.

New Zealand will provide September data for building permits; in August, permits were down 6.7 percent on month.

Australia will release September figures for private sector credit, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 0.3 percent on month - slowing from 0.4 percent in August.

South Korea will see September numbers for industrial production and retail sales. Production is expected to fall 1.0 percent on month and 0.1 percent on year after rising 5.5 percent on month and easing 0.5 percent on year in August. Retail sales were down 0.3 percent on month in August.

Taiwan will release preliminary Q3 data for gross domestic product, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 2.1 percent on year - up from 1.36 percent in the previous three months.

China will see October results for its manufacturing, non-manufacturing and composite indexes from the National Bureau of Statistics; in September, their scores were 50.2, 51.7 and 52.0, respectively.

Hong Kong will release preliminary Q3 figures for gross domestic product, with analysts looking for an increase of 5.1 percent on year - accelerating from 1.5 percent in the three months prior.

Thailand will provide September data for industrial production, current account and imports, exports and trade balance. In August, industrial production fell 7.53 percent on year, while the current account showed a surplus of $0.400 billion. Imports were down 11.9 percent on year and exports fell 1.8 percent for a trade surplus of $1.20 billion.