East Asia Today

A lot is going on in markets, but for data, it has been a quieter day. Core machine orders in June in Japan were flat-ish, but overseas and tech exports remained strong. Household debt in Korea is rising in KRW terms, but is now falling sharply relative to GDP.

Paul Cavey

Aug 19, 2026 • 2 min read

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East Asia Today

Relative GDP performance across the region, and a few more updates on China: detailed auto export data and fx settlement data for July, and upstream prices through the first 10 days of August.

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East Asia Today

Another round of weak domestic demand data for China. Japan Q2 GDP growth softened, but I thought the details looked ok. Taiwan's FDI into the US is once again increasing sharply.

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China – domestic demand still weakening

Retail sales have been anchored around zero for more than a year, property activity is still dropping and FAI is contracting. Nonetheless, IP is growing around 5%, partly because of exports, and the government's attitude suggests that it continues to think that is enough.