East Asia Econ

China – some nominal momentum

Today's official PMIs were below 50. That shows the domestic economy is weak – though the data were likely pulled down by the coming holiday. More interesting was the further rise in prices in manufacturing. That change relates to USD/global prices, but does suggest an upturn in nominal momentum.

Paul Cavey

Jan 31, 2026 • 2 min read

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East Asia Today

Lots of cycle updates today, with all the month-end data for Japan and Korea, as well as Q4 GDP data for Taiwan, which was another blow-out. China's main data release today showed service exports rising, though not nearly as quickly as exports of goods.

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Japan – falling inflation = higher consumption?

With policy efforts reducing headline inflation, the bullish case for Japan is once again a rise in real wages that pushes up consumer spending and aggregate demand. The consumer confidence survey points to just that scenario, but it isn't in the hard data yet, with December retail sales still soft.

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Korea – still all about exports

Today's data releases show the domestic economy bottoming out, but not yet growing much. The upside risk rests on 1) exports, which the BOK in its last official forecast thought would only grow 1.4% in 2026 and 2) capex, with Samsung and SK Hynix this week pledging big increases.