Japan's Housing Starts Fall At Slower Pace

TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Japan's housing starts continued to decline in November albeit at a slower pace, data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism showed on Friday.

Housing starts were down 3.7 percent on year, following October's 8.3 percent decline. This was also better than the expected decrease of 4.9 percent.

Annualized housing starts rose to 820,000 in November from 802,000 in the previous month.

Further, data showed that construction orders received by the big 50 contractors decreased 4.7 percent on a yearly basis, bigger than the 0.1 percent fall posted in October.

Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX