Japan’s machinery orders plunged 13 percent in January, the biggest decline in eight months, signaling limits on corporate investment as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tries to drive an economic revival.
The decline from the previous month, announced by the Cabinet Office Modnay in Tokyo, compared with the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 26 economists for a 1.7 percent fall. Large orders can cause volatile results.
Japan returned to growth in the fourth quarter as the yen began to slide, bolstering Abe’s campaign to end 15 years of deflation and revive the world’s third-biggest economy. Monday’s data are a reminder that business investment will not drive the recovery, said Izumi Devalier, a Japan economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong.
