The most important economic data in Asia next week 

Important data from the Asian region is expected to be released next week, with eyes on the Chinese HSBC PMI along with the Reserve Bank of Australia meeting’s minutes.

Starting with the HSBC PMI from China, the preliminary reading for February might show some improvement from January’s reported contraction as the index remained below 50 at 48.8.

China recently is experiencing some difficulties, where the nation’s exports retreated for the first time in more than two years in January, as it retreated by 0.5% compared with the prior recorded increased reading of 13.4%, along with the return of consumer prices to advance again, where it advance by 4.5 %, which is threatening the nation’s growth rates.

These desperate signs forced more monetary easing, where it asked banks to reduce cash reserves and urged them to raise the level of lending in the first quarter of this year.

As Europe’s debt crisis contributed in dampening the growth of exports, China announced recently that it will raise the investments in European debt in order to preserve its interests and motivate the speed of the economic recovery and demand rates.

Moving to Australia, the RBA meting minutes will be released this week, and here we refer that the Australia's economy added more jobs than expected in January, as the mining sector helped in boosting the economy despite Europe's sovereign debt crisis. Payrolls advanced by 46,300 last month, compared with the revised drop of 35,600 in December, beating expectations of 10.0 thousand new jobs.

On the other hand, the Australian consumer confidence advanced to the highest level in three months, where the two interest-rate cuts last November and December improved the financial outlook for households. The sentiment index for February advanced 4.2% to 101.1, the highest level since November, compared with the prior reading of 2.4%.