East Asia Econ

East Asia Today

Once again, the key theme in today's data releases has been inflationary pressure, seen in Japan's Tankan and the regional PMIs. By contrast, activity proxies haven't moved much. Korea's trade data help explain why: export growth in March was strong, boosted again by chip sales.

Paul Cavey

Apr 1, 2026 • 3 min read

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Japan – more signs of higher inflation

Today's summary release of the BOJ Tankan shows output prices rising, inflation expectations up, and the labour market tight. At the same time, business sentiment – at least for now – remains solid. Upside risks to inflation are growing again.

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East Asia Today

Inflation is the theme, with the rise in prices in the China March PMIs, and two documents released by the BOJ yesterday. In other data today, Korean output was stronger in February. I'd worry about holiday distortions, though a turn in construction can also be seen in the BOK's sentiment survey.

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Japan – more hints of upside risks to inflation

More interesting than today's data releases were yesterday's BOJ documents, on trends in underlying inflation, and the summary of opinions of the March MPB meeting. The BOJ is concerned about the negative TOT shock from the Middle East, but sounds more worried about upside risks to inflation.