Japanese manufacturers increased production for a fourth month in June, capping the fastest quarterly output expansion in more than half a century and helping the economy rebound from its deepest postwar recession. Production rose 2.4% from  May, the Trade Ministry said today in Tokyo. Output gained 8.3% last quarter from the first three months of 2009, the most since 1953.

China’s central bank said it will use market tools to control lending growth and pledged to maintain a “moderately loose monetary policy” to support the nation’s economic recovery. In the second half  of this year, the central bank will “emphasize the use of market tools instead of quantity controls to guide appropriate growth in money supply and lending growth,” said People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Su Ning in Shanghai,

Most Asian stocks declined as lower commodities prices dragged down materials producers, overshadowing better?than?expected earnings at Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co.

China’s credit growth will slow from the “unsustainable” pace seen this year to about 15% in 2010 as a strengthening economy may reduce need for loan support, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said.

General Motors Co., the largest overseas automaker in China, is heading for a 70% ?plus increase in local sales this month on the back of government stimulus measures and a rebounding economy.

New Zealand’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a second month and said it may cut borrowing costs further as a rising currency threatens a recovery from the worst recession in three decades. “The forecast recovery is based on a further easing in financial conditions,” Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard said in a statement in Wellington today after leaving the official cash rate at 2.5%. “If this easing does not occur, the recovery could be put at risk. In these circumstances we would reassess policy settings.”