Chinese railways' fixed-asset investment in the first quarter rose 5.1% year on year to 137.9 billion yuan, Xinhua reported Saturday, citing China State Railway Group.
Some of the railway projects that are continuing are the Xi'an-Shiyan high-speed railway and the Shandong section of the Xiong'an-Shangqiu high-speed railway, the report said.
About 2,000 kilometers of new national railway lines are planned to start operations this year, the report said.
South Korea's exports jumped 36.7% to $25.2 billion in the first 10 days of April from $18.4 billion a year earlier, Monday data from the Korea Customs Service showed.Imports increased 12.7% to $22.1 billion from $19.6 billion a year earlier, resulting in a $3.1 billion trade surplus.
Japan's trade minister Ryosei Akazawa said the Bank of Japan could tame inflation by boosting the yen, as the central bank considers a rate hike this month to counter price pressures from the Iran war, Reuters reported Monday, citing the official.Akazawa - who serves as both Japan's top trade negotiator and head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry- made these remarks on a television talk show in reply to an economist's argument that a stronger yen would ease the higher expenses of importing crude oil, the news wire said.On the same NHK program, Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, stated that if the BOJ used policy to lift the yen by roughly 10% to 15%, it could curb price increases across the economy, including for food, which represents a large portion of household spending.(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is now expected to consecutively increase the official cash rate three times by 25 basis points in July, September, and October, taking the policy rate to 3%, according to a Monday report by ANZ Research.The central bank is likely to decide that the risks of conducting rate hikes later outweigh the risks of increasing too soon as long as the official cash rate is not considered contractionary.The analysts noted that it was possible the subsequent monetary policy decision could be a rate cut, or that the official cash rate "doesn't even make it as far as 3%."The outlook for oil prices and fuel supply is highly uncertain; meanwhile, the impact on medium-term inflation is ambiguous. Both the demand and the supply side of the economy are in flux.