Japan government says coincident indicator index suggests economy is worsening

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's coincident indicator index fell in May and the government kept its view on the index, signalling the coronavirus outbreak was hurting the economy.

The index of coincident economic indicators, which consists of a range of data including factory output, employment and retail sales data, slipped a preliminary 5.5 points from the previous month to 74.6 in May, the Cabinet Office said on Tuesday.

But the index for leading economic indicators, which is a gauge of the economy a few months ahead and is compiled using data such as job offers and consumer sentiment, rose 1.6 points to 79.3 from April.

(Reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto, writing by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)