Economic Calendar - Currencies

In China, Housing Index is measured by year-over-year change in the index of newly built residential buildings in 70 medium and large cities. The index is calculated in weighted average method and the weight of each city is based on the population.

In Australia, interest rates decisions are taken by the Reserve Bank of Australia's Board. The official interest rate is the cash rate. The cash rate is the rate charged on overnight loans between financial intermediaries, is determined in the money market as a result of the interaction of demand for and supply of overnight funds.

In China, the year-over-year change in Retail sales compares the aggregated sales of retail goods and services during a certain month to the same month a year ago.

In China, industrial production measures the output of businesses integrated in industrial sector of the economy such as manufacturing, mining, and utilities.

In China, Urban Surveyed Unemployment Rate is calculated by a sample survey, which refers to the ratio of urban unemployed population to the sum of the employed population and the unemployed population.

In China, urban investment in fixed assets is one of the main measures of capital spending. It refers to investment in construction projects with a total planned investment of 5 million yuan; machinery and equipment and real estate development in both urban and rural areas. It refers to investment made by state-owned enterprises and private businesses, institutions or individuals.

In Japan, industrial production measures the output of businesses integrated in industrial sector of the economy such as manufacturing, mining, and utilities.

In Japan, capacity utilization is the quantity of production divided by the quantity of production capacity, expressing the state of operations for various facilities in the manufacturing industry. It does not measure the absolute level of capacity utilization but the relative capacity utilization rate compared with the benchmark year.

The activity index of the tertiary industry helps to understand an overall picture of industrial activities, inclusive of all business categories in the tertiary industry. The composite index is a general indicator in which the indexes to express the activity in respective business categories are consolidated with weight in terms of the scale of relative importance of each business category (value added). Wholesale Trade is the most important sector and accounts for 15 percent of tertiary activity, followed by Medical, Health Care & Welfare and Living & Amusement-related Services (12 percent each), Information & Communications (11 percent), Retail Trade and Transport & Postal Activities (10 percent each), Finance and Insurance (9 percent), Real Estate (8 percent), Business-related Services (7 percent), and Electricity, Gas, Heat Supply & Water and Goods Rental and Leasing (3 percent each).

In Japan, industrial production measures the output of businesses integrated in industrial sector of the economy such as manufacturing, mining, and utilities.

In Brazil, the Economic Activity Index (IBC-Br) is considered as a preview of the GDP figures and it is widely used by the Central Bank's Monetary Policy Committee to determine whether to modify basic interest rate. The index reflects the performance of the three main sectors of the economy: agriculture, industry and services and has a base value of 100 as of 2002.

CPI Trimmed is a measure of core inflation that excludes CPI components whose rates of change in a given month are located in the tails of the distribution of price changes. This measure helps filter out extreme price movements that might be caused by factors specific to certain components. In particular, CPI-trim excludes 20 percent of the weighted monthly price variations at both the bottom and top of the distribution of price changes, and thus it always removes 40 percent of the total CPI basket.