Japan's core private-sector machinery orders in January fell 3.2 percent from the previous month to 718.3 billion yen (7.3 billion dollars), government sources said Wednesday.
The seasonally adjusted figure is the lowest level in value terms since May 1987, the Cabinet Office said.
It was also the third-lowest after comparable data became available, while the worst was 674.6 billion yen in April 1987, according to the office.
The office maintained its description on the machinery order as "drastically declining".
The reading, widely regarded as a key indicator of corporate capital spending about six months ahead, represented an unadjusted 39.5 percent decrease from a year earlier, the office said.
In January, overseas demand, an indicator of future Japanese exports, plummeted 49.0 percent from December and 71.2 percent from a year earlier to 384.6 billion yen, with dwindling orders for industrial machinery and aircraft, according to the office.
The month-on-month decline in foreign demand was the largest on record. Kyodo News quoted a Cabinet Office official as saying that orders from foreign firms, governments and overseas units of Japanese companies sank as their appetite for capital spending waned due to the global economic downturn.
The core orders exclude those for ships and from electric power companies as they tend to vary widely because of their large size.