Despite a weak yen, Japan’s exports have been sluggish Japan’s economy shrank in the second quarter of the year, marking a setback for the government’s reform policy.<\/p>\n
Between April and June, economic growth contracted by 0.4% compared with the first three months of the year.<\/p>\n
Lagging exports and sluggish consumer spending were the biggest contributors to the drop in growth.<\/p>\n
It is likely to put pressure on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to revamp his reform programme of monetary and fiscal stimulus to boost growth.<\/p>\n
Japan’s economy shrank at an annualised pace of 1.6% in the quarter, following a revised expansion of 4.5% in the first quarter, official data showed.<\/p>\n
Doubtful outlook<\/p>\n
Japanese Economics Minister Akira Amari said the GDP contraction was due to weak exports to China and the US, as well as poor consumer spending as a result of bad weather.<\/p>\n
The disappointing economic growth follows a recent run of weak data including exports and factory output, raising doubts about the outlook for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n
In July, the\u00a0International Monetary Fund had warned Tokyo, not to rely too much on the weak yen for long-term recovery.<\/p>\n
Tokyo’s reform efforts, dubbed Abenomics, were kicked off in 2012, and were aimed at getting Japan’s economy out of deflation and back to growth.<\/p>\n
While the programme is credited with having achieved short-term growth, the government has struggled to deregulate the job market and open up some of the country’s very protected industry sectors.<\/p>\n
Source: www.bbc.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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