Japan reports that its manufacturing output and household spending fell in March, while the jobless rate remained at a 22-year low of 2.8 per cent.
The data released Friday generally were slightly weaker than analysts had forecast, though the outlook for the world's third-largest economy remained upbeat.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 0.2 per cent, well below the central bank's official target of 2 per cent but still the third straight month of increase.
Industrial output fell 2.1 per cent from February.
Anemic growth in wages and worries over future cuts to pensions and other social spending are constraining consumer spending, slowing progress toward the kind of sustainable growth Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised to deliver through his strategy of lavish monetary easing and public spending and longer-term economic reforms.
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