(Update) Japan Core Machinery Orders Up 1.7 Pct in Dec.

Tokyo, Feb. 10 (Jiji Press)--Japan's seasonally adjusted core machinery orders in December rose 1.7 pct from the previous month, the first increase in four months, the government said Thursday.
Private-sector orders excluding those for ships and power equipment, a leading indicator of corporate capital spending, totaled 735.3 billion yen, the Cabinet Office said. Compared with a year before, the core orders fell 1.6 pct.
The Cabinet Office also said that core machinery orders in October-December fell back 6.9 pct from July-September to 2,204.1 billion yen.
But the government agency expects the orders in January-March to rebound increase 2.7 pct quarter on quarter.
Against this backdrop, the Cabinet Office kept unchanged its assessment of core machinery orders in December, saying that although orders are improving, there is weakness in orders from the nonmanufacturing sector.
In December, core orders from nonmanufacturers rose 3.9 pct from the previous month to 429.2 billion yen, the first growth in three months, reflecting strong computer system orders from financial and insurance and communications companies.
But orders in October-December were down 10.1 pct from the previous quarter.
December's total machinery orders from manufacturers dropped 1.9 pct from the previous month to 304.4 billion yen, hit by falls in orders from railway car and information and telecommunications equipment manufacturers.
Overall machinery orders from all sectors including the public sector and foreign entities rose 6.6 pct to 2,087.6 billion yen, the first increase in two months.
Total machinery orders in the whole of 2010 jumped 20.0 pct from the previous year to 23,853.7 billion yen, the first rise in three years.
The rise was the steepest since comparable data became available in 1988.
Still, the total was smaller than that in 2008, when the economy started slumping sharply after the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in September that year.