More green shoots from China and Japan, with industrial production improving in both countries.
As well, China saw strong rises in retail sales in May, another encouraging sign.
But figures from Europe surprised on the downside with the depressed German economy pulling down eurozone output in April by a record amount.
With American production negative, China is the world’s only major economy where output positive and growing with some reliability.
Japan’s rise is more to do with a stock rebuilding and some re-opening of previously closed car factories and their suppliers.
In every economy though output is down sharply from a year ago; China’s fall is less than that in the US, Japan and Europe.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics says industrial output rose 8.9% in May, up from April’s 7.3% annualised rise and better than market forecasts for a 7.5% improvement.
But it should be remembered that industrial production is still well under the 15% annual rate of a year ago.
Chinese retail sales rose a better than expected annual 15.2% May, following a 14.8% rise in April.
Coming on top of the rising investment figures and still solid bank lending numbers for May, the figures support the contention that China’s domestic economy is recovering, without any inflationary impact.
But as China reported last week, exports are weak, as are import levels, which tell us that that the economy is now growing in a balanced fashion.
The record 26% fall in exports in the year to May is a reminder of how different the Chinese economy is from a year ago and how delicately poised growth and demand remain.
And Japan’s industrial output jumped 5.9% in April, better than the first forecast of a 5.2% rise.
It was the biggest monthly rise since 1953. But production is still more than 30% lower than it was a year ago and capacity utilisation in Japan is still at record lows of around 67%.
China’s rise in output was the highest since last October.
The government said output of many major products rose.
Car production rose 29% to 1.15 million units. Sales were up 47% in May from the same month of 2008.
The higher production of cars helped lift steel production 7.4% to 57.29 million tonnes and coal up 9.6% to 250 million tonnes.
Power generation, however, fell 2.7% to 283.89 billion kilowatt-hours and crude oil output was down 1.1% to 16.03 million tonnes.
Xinhua newsagency said that the National Bureau of Statistics said the faster-than-expected industrial output growth was down to six factors.
A rebound in the growth rate of heavy industry, which accounts for about 70%.
"The growth rate of heavy industry recovered from continued declines since last September to 8.6 percent in May, 1.7 percentage points faster than April.
"Second, almost three-quarters of all 39 industrial categories saw their growth rates accelerate in May compared with April. For instance, the high-tech industry grew 7.3 percent, 2.6 percentage points faster than April.
"Third, the output of nearly 60 percent of all 494 industrial products grew faster than the previous month.
"Fourth, 20 of the 31 provincial regions reported higher growth rates. Economic powerhouse Guangdong Province posted a growth rate that was 3.2 percentage points faster than April.
"Fifth, output in quake-hit Sichuan Province grew 32.5 percent in May, compared with 3.6 percent in May 2008 when it was hit by the deadly earthquake.
"Finally, excluding the quake factor, the national growth rate of industrial output was 1 percentage point faster than in April. Meanwhile, the contraction in power generation was 0.8 percentage point less than in April, showing that power output was consistent with industrial production."
Bank credit grew in May, up 664.5 billion Yuan (about $US97.3 billion) in May.
People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said May figure lending brought new Yuan-denominated loans in the first five months to 5.84 trillion Yuan, far exceeding the full-year target of 5 trillion Yuan.
Outstanding loans by financial institutions grew 30.6% year on year to 36.21 trillion Yuan at the end of May.
But the rapid growth in first quarter lending saw new bank credit ease in April and May.
And retail sales jumped 15.2% May from the same month of 2008.
That was 0.4% higher than the annual rate for the year to April of 14.8%.
The Government said retail sales were up 15% over the first five months of this year on the same period of 2008.
But while the news from China and Japan is looking better, eurozone industrial production recorded the sharpest year-on-year drop on record in April, dropping a nasty 21.6%.
European media reports said the news adds to concern that the economic crisis may be far from over in Europe where renewed fears about banking stability in some countries, such as Germany and France, have come to the forefront in recent weeks.
Output in May was off 1.9% from April.
On monthly basis, production of capital goods fell by 2.7% in the euro zone; intermediate goods by 1.7%; energy dropped by 1.1%. Durable consumer goods by 0.8% and production of non-durable consumer goods by 0.7%.
Eurostat, the EU’s statistics group, said across the wider the 27-nation EU, industrial production fell 1.9% month on month in February and by 17.5% over the year to February.
German industrial production fell 1.9% in April from March, which was revised upwards to show a 0.3% rise. 
