Australia Rate Decision Due On Tuesday

CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Reserve Bank of Australia will wrap up its monetary policy meeting and then announce its decision on interest rates, highlighting a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity.

The RBA is widely expected to trim its benchmark lending rate from the already record low of 1.00 percent to 0.75 percent.

The RBA will also provide September numbers for its commodity price index; in August, the index climbed 6.2 percent to a score of 124.9.

Australia will also release August figures for building approvals and also see September results for the Performance of Manufacturing Index from the Australian Industry Group.

Building approvals are predicted to add 2.0 percent on month but plummet 20.0 percent on year after tumbling 9.7 percent on month and 28.5 percent on year in July. The manufacturing index saw a score of 53.1 in August.

The Bank of Japan is scheduled to release its quarterly Tankan survey of business sentiment.

The large manufacturers index is expected to see a score of +1, down from +7 in the three months prior, while the outlook is expected to sink to 0 from +7. All industry capex is seen higher by 7.0 percent on year, slowing from 7.4 percent in the previous quarter.

Japan also will see August numbers for unemployment and final September figures for the manufacturing PMI from Nikkei.

The jobless rate is expected to tick up to 2.3 percent from 2.2 percent in July, while the job-to-applicant ratio is called steady at 1.59. The previous reading for the manufacturing PMI was 48.9.

Indonesia will provide inflation data for September; in August, overall consumer prices were 0.1 percent on month and 3.5 percent on year, while core inflation climbed an annual 3.3 percent.

The Philippines will release August numbers for producer prices; in July, prices were down 0.4 percent on month and up 1.1 percent on year.

Several of the Asia-Pacific countries are scheduled to see the latest manufacturing PMI data from IHS, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Finally, the markets in China and Hong Kong are off for the National Day holiday. Hong Kong returns to action on Wednesday, while China is shuttered until October 8.

Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX