Japan’s economy is contracting dramatically and it still takes time to fully recover – Xinhua English.news.cn

Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, February 15 Question: Japan’s economy has contracted dramatically and it will take time to fully recover

Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Chunyan

Preliminary statistics released by Japan’s Cabinet Office on the 15th show that Japan’s real gross domestic product (GDP) will fall 4.8% in 2020 due to the impact of the new corona epidemic. Although the Japanese economy continued to recover in the second half of last year, economists generally believe that it will take some time for the Japanese economy to return to its pre-epidemic level.

Statistics show that domestic demand dragged the Japanese economy down 3.8 percentage points last year and external demand dragged the economy down 1.0 percentage point. Analysts said that China and other major Japanese export markets recovered quickly to avoid a further decline in the Japanese economy.

Also, Japan’s GDP in the fourth quarter of last year increased 3% over the previous month. Compared with the previous quarter, Japanese investment in corporate equipment and residential investment have gone from a decline to an increase, and the growth rate of exports has also accelerated, but the growth rate of personal consumption, which represents half of the Japanese economy has accelerated. slowed down.

In early 2020, the epidemic aggravated the Japanese economy, which had already started to go downhill. In the first two quarters of last year, the Japanese economy continued to contract. In the third quarter of last year, with the rapid recovery of China and other export markets, Japan’s external demand recovered rapidly and the Japanese government issued a series of fiscal and financial stimulus policies, and the Japanese economy recovered somewhat. .

The Japanese media and economists generally believe that although the Japanese economy has grown for two consecutive quarters in the second half of last year, due to the ongoing epidemic, the market is facing high uncertainty, the economic recovery is weak and the economy wants to return to its pre-epidemic level. Difficulties.

As of January 2021, Tokyo and other prefectures and counties have re-entered a state of emergency. Government measures to stimulate consumption, such as travel and dining before the epidemic recovered, were forced to stop. and domestic consumption was once again suppressed. Many economists even predict that the Japanese economy may return to negative growth in the first quarter of this year.

Furthermore, whether the Tokyo Olympics can be held this year also faces some uncertainty. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities estimates that the cancellation of the Olympics will reduce Japan’s GDP by 0.7% in 2021.

Saito Taro, director of the Department of Economic Research at the Japan Institute of Life Sciences, believes that in addition to the lack of momentum for economic recovery, the increase in business closures caused by the epidemic and declining income from the residents have also damaged Japan’s economic base. It may take several years for Japan’s real GDP to return to the level before this round of economic recession (the third quarter of 2019).