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 Thailand has already surprised by cutting interest rates this week,
while speculation is mounting that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)
will chop its rates to a record low of 2 percent at a May 5 policy
meeting.
The need for action is all the greater as China, the former engine
of global growth, remains jammed in neutral.
China's official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) held at 50.1 in
April, just a fraction above the 50-point mark that separates growth
from contraction on a monthly basis.
"As the economy still faces strong headwinds and the risk of
deflation has not diminished, the authorities will need to continue
to roll out easing measures in the coming months," said Li-Gang Liu,
chief economist for Greater China at ANZ.
Following an aggressive one-percentage-point cut in banks' reserve
requirement ratios last month, ANZ expects China's central bank will
lower its interest rates further this quarter.
China's annual economic growth slowed to a six-year low of 7 percent
in the first quarter, hurt by a housing slump and a downturn in
investment and manufacturing.
In just the latest effort to turn the ship around, China's cabinet
unveiled new measures on Friday to boost employment, offering more
flexible tax breaks to companies to hire and preferential loans to
business starters.
Beijing aims to create at least 10 million new jobs in 2015 and keep
the urban jobless rate below 4.5 percent.
NOT ENOUGH INFLATION
In Japan, the Markit/JMMA version of the PMI fell to 49.9 in April,
from 50.3 in March, taking it into contractionary territory for the
first time since May last year.
Japan is emerging from recession at a snail's pace as companies
remain wary of ramping up spending despite record profits and
consumers keep their wallets shut.
That is challenging the Bank of Japan's bold pledge to accelerate
inflation to 2 percent through massive money printing.
While core inflation did edge up a tick to an annual 2.2 percent in
April, it is set to fall back toward zero in May when the impact of
last year's rise in sales taxes drop out.
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Neither have wages benefited as the BOJ hoped. Data out on Friday
showed wage earners' total cash earnings were almost flat in March
and inflation-adjusted real wages marked a two-year stretch of
declines.
Across in South Korea, government figures showed exports fell 8.1
percent in April from a year earlier, the sharpest drop since
February 2013, as shipments to China, the United States and the
European Union all lost ground.
Consumer price inflation there is running at a 16-year trough of
just 0.4 percent.
"The government will be sure to focus policy on boosting consumption
as exports are no longer performing as they did in the past," said
Stephen Lee, an economist at Samsung Securities.
The doleful data follows news the United States grew a bare 0.2
percent annualized in the first quarter of the year, held back by
wild weather, a port strike and a strong dollar.
Yet there were glints of light in more recent data.
The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell
to a 15-year low last week and consumer spending rose in March,
aided in part by a pick up in wage growth.
An upturn in wages has long been a key goal of the Federal Reserve
and revived market expectations that interest rates would start to
rise later this year, albeit not until September at the earliest.
(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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