JAPON_ -8.5% INDUSTRY

Japanese output plunges further

Industrial output in Japan dropped 8.5% in November compared with the previous month, larger than initially estimated.

The drop represents the biggest fall since records of such output 
statistics began in 1953.

Compared with a year earlier, the country's industrial output fell 
16.6%, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.

Factories were closed and jobs cut as demand for manufactured goods slumped amid the global financial downturn.

Another record fall

It was also reported last week that Japanese machinery orders, seen 
as a barometer of corporate spending activity, had posted their 
steepest monthly fall on record in November.

Core private sector machinery orders, excluding orders from electric 
power firms and shipbuilders, fell 16% from October to 754bn yen 
($8.4bn; £5.8bn).

Japan is the world's second-largest economy, and Asia's largest.

It has been directly hit by the slump in demand caused by the 
spreading global downturn.

The Japanese government has already predicted that the economy will not grow in 2009.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7836858.stm

Published: 2009/01/19 07:40:09 GMT

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