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Japan's Core Machinery Orders Contract 12.4% in May

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Japan's private-sector core machinery orders, which exclude volatile sectors such as ships and electric power, decreased 12.4% on a seasonally-adjusted month-over-month basis in May to 962 billion yen, according to data from the Cabinet Office released on Wednesday.

The pace of drop was worse than the consensus forecast of a 4.2% fall tracked by Investing.com, and compared with an 8.7% expansion recorded in the previous month.

By sector, manufacturing orders shrank 14.9% to 437.2 billion yen, while non-manufacturing orders slipped 9.3% to 516.9 billion yen.

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