A four-month slump in foreign orders for Japanese machinery may be the latest sign that waning demand is threatening to derail the global economic recovery.
Overseas orders fell 5.9 percent in June for the longest losing streak since comparable data became available in 2005, the Cabinet Office said Thursday. The value has dropped more than a fifth from its most recent peak in February.
Economists and governments from the U.K. to Japan to Australia are cutting growth outlooks in the second year of the recovery from the Great Recession in 2009. Reports this week showing weaker U.S. and German exports and slower-than-forecast industrial production in China underscore that demand was faltering even before an equity market rout.