(RTTNews) - Wednesday, Japanese core machinery order data dominated the Asian session.

The Economic and Social Research Institute said that Japan’s core machinery orders fell by a seasonally adjusted 8.3% month-on-month in March. That was sharply lower than analysts’ expectations that called for a monthly decline of 4.9% following a 12.3% fall in February. On an annual basis, core machinery orders were down 6.2% after a 2.4% increase in February. Economists had expected an increase of 1%.

In China, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that urban fixed-asset investment for the period of January to April grew 25.7% on an annual basis. Economists had expected an annual increase between 26% and 26.3%. It was also below the 25.9% year-on-year increase in March.

According to a monthly report from the Department of Statistics, Singapore’s retail sales rose 11.6% month-on-month in March. Excluding motor vehicles, retail sales grew 9.3%.

Year-on-year, sales in Singapore’s retail stores climbed 5.6%. On a seasonally adjusted basis, retail sales dropped 6.6% month-on-month and excluding motor vehicles, sales rose 1.6%.

In other news, India’s infrastructure sector grew 9.6% in March 2008 compared to a growth of 10.5% in the same period previous year. The decline was however much less compared to downwardly revised growth of 7.1% in February.

According to the Statistics Indonesia, the economy expanded 6.28% year-on-year in the first quarter, compared with 6.25% in the fourth quarter.

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