Kia ora,

Welcome to Tuesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect New Zealand.

I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.

Today we lead with news China has released a large set of economic data and not all of it is as positive as it first seems, or their officials claim.

But first, the New York Fed's survey of factories in its region in February was increasingly positive with and increase in new orders. But costs and prices rose at their fastest in ten years.

In Canada, housing starts stayed high in February even it they just slightly undershot expectations.

In China, data for industrial production, and for retail sales both came in better than expected for the January-February period, and recorded gains far above the December month as well. Year-on-year data isn't so relevant however as the 2020 bases were hugely affected by the onset of the pandemic there (and even if they do look spectacular in a chart).

But the retail sales gain actually wasn't that impressive even if it was better than expected. It indicates their 'recovery' seems to be weakening.

Worse, there was a rise in their surveyed unemployment rate to 5.5%, from 5.4% last month and 5.2% in December. In Chinese terms, admitting to that is sort of confirmation that things aren't exactly on the right track at present.

And Chinese electricity production slipped sharply on a daily average basis from December and was even lower than for November, so that might also be indicating a real economy slowdown.

House prices are rising a little faster in China than they have been recently, however. Of their 70 to cities, only nine had price falls. The range is from a fall of -1.5% year-on-year to +14.9%. These prices are rising their fastest in six months.

In Beijing, it is under attack from the weather as a giant sandstorm engulfs the city. Desertification is inching closer and even the Party can't prevent such climate onslaughts. It is their worst sandstorm in a decade and flights in and out of the region have had to be abandoned.

iron ore prices held their higher levels yesterday, and seem to be shaking off their drop of last week.

In Myanmar, China's support of the anti-democracy military coup has brought violent anti-China reactions with riots that have torched many Chinese-owned businesses.

In Japan, data for machinery orders in January came in better than expected although only by a small degree. But this data precedes the very strong machine tool order data for February we have already reported, so February machinery orders data is likely to have improved again.

In France, the boss of dairy giant Danone has been forced out after a series of poor financial results and strategy missteps.

The UST 10yr yield is down -2 bps from yesterday at 1.61%.

The price of gold starts today little-changed in New York, up +US$1 to just on US$1729/oz.

Oil prices have stayed high and are unchanged at just under US$65.50/bbl in the US, while the international price is now just under US$69.50/bbl.

The Kiwi dollar opens today marginally firmer at 71.9 USc. Against the Australian dollar we are up at 92.9 AUc. Against the euro we firmer too are just under 60.3 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 opens today at 74.

The bitcoin price will start today down -2.3% from this time yesterday at US$56,276. In between, volatility in the past 24 hours has been a very high +/- 5.4%.

You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.

And get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.

Kia ora. I'm David Chaston. We will do this again tomorrow.