South Korea's bank deposit rates declined in March while borrowing costs also continued to decrease, the Bank of Korea said Tuesday.
The average interest rate on new deposits fell one basis point to 2.82% from the previous month, while rates on outstanding deposits also shed one basis point to 2%.
New loan rates declined six basis points from the previous month to 4.20%, and the average rate on outstanding loans was unchanged at 4.27% at the end of March.
Total new residential mortgage lending in New Zealand rose to NZ$9.5 billion in March from NZ$6.64 billion in February, according to data from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand released on Wednesday.Residential mortgage lending to first home buyers rose to NZ$1.99 billion in March from NZ$1.39 billion in the previous month. Lending to other owner-occupiers increased to NZ$5.49 billion from NZ$3.92 billion.Residential mortgage lending to investors rose to NZ$1.89 billion from NZ$1.25 billion, while that for business purposes increased to NZ$134 million from NZ$82 million.Total new residential lending at a loan-to-valuation ratio above 80% came in at NZ$1.38 billion in March for all borrower types, up from NZ$981 million in February.Residential mortgage lending, where the loan-to-valuation ratio is equal to 80% or below, was NZ$8.12 billion for all borrower types, up from NZ$5.65 billion in the previous month.
New Zealand's first-quarter unemployment rate is expected to remain steady at 5.4%, slightly lower than the previous forecast of 5.5%, according to a report by ANZ released on Wednesday.ANZ increased its quarterly employment growth forecast by 0.1 percentage points to 0.3%, with employment growth appearing to have held onto a little more momentum in March than previously anticipated, the report said.Upcoming data on hours paid and hours worked may indicate some signal around the risks to the first-quarter GDP forecast of 0.8% quarter on quarter, though the recent oil shock likely won't show up yet since the labor market is typically the last sector to react to changing economic conditions.First-quarter labor market data is expected to show that the market had enough excess capacity to act as a buffer against the recent oil shock, limiting the risk of labor costs driving up inflation in the near term.
India's production growth, measured by the Index of Industrial Production, slowed to 4.1% in March from 5.2% in February, according to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on Tuesday.In March 2025, India's IIP growth rate was at 3.9%.The quick estimates of IIP came in at 173.2 in March, up from 166.3 in the same month in 2025.The manufacturing sector, which carries the largest weight in the index, grew at 4.3% in March from 4.0% a year earlier. It was, however, lower than the 5.9% growth in February.Mining output grew 5.5% in March against 1.2% in the corresponding period of the previous year. Electricity production, however, fell to 0.8%, compared with 7.5% in the year-ago period.The indices of industrial production for the mining, manufacturing, and electricity sectors for March stood at 166.8, 169.4, and 221.3, respectively.