View of Mount Fuji and the Tokyo skyline at sunset.
Yongyuan | E+ | fake images
Japan’s economy contracted in the July-September period for the first time in four quarters, provisional government data showed on Wednesday, amid a slowdown in global demand and rising domestic inflation.
Provisional gross domestic product fell 2.1% in the third quarter compared to a year ago, although it also posted a 0.5% drop from the previous quarter.
Economists polled by Reuters expected the world’s third-largest economy to post an annualized decline of 0.6% and a quarter-on-quarter contraction of 0.1% in the July-September quarter.
The drop is part of an unstable trend since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, in which periods of economic expansion have alternated with contraction.
It underscores the complex challenges facing the Bank of Japan as Governor Kazuo Ueda contemplates an eventual exit from his ultra-loose monetary policy, while bolstering the Japanese government’s 13.2 trillion yen ($87 billion) economic package that will include subsidies and payments to low-income people. homes to mitigate rising energy and utility bills and aim to curb the rising cost of living.
This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.
