{"id":11020,"date":"2018-08-10T09:22:34","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T09:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11020"},"modified":"2018-08-10T09:22:34","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T09:22:34","slug":"japan-dodges-a-recession-but-its-not-in-the-clear-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11020","title":{"rendered":"Japan dodges a recession, but it’s not in the clear yet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Hay\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Japan has bounced back from a poor start to the year.<\/h2>\n

The world’s third-largest economy grew at an annualized rate of 1.9% in the second quarter, according to government figures released Friday. <\/p>\n

Boosted by a jump in spending by consumers, the performance beat economists’ expectations and marks a recovery from a contraction in the first quarter of the year.<\/a> <\/p>\n

It means Japan avoided slipping into a recession, which is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. But the country is likely to struggle to grow strongly in the coming quarters. <\/p>\n

“Growth isn’t as vigorous as last year,” Marcel Thieliant, senior Japan economist at research firm Capital Economics, said in a note to clients. <\/p>\n

Related: EU and Japan sign trade deal covering a third of the world’s economy<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n

The economy’s contraction in the first quarter snapped its longest streak of growth since the boom days of the late 1980s. But the two-year expansion has stretched resources in Japan, which is struggling with problems that include a rapidly aging population and persistently low inflation. <\/p>\n

“Firms are facing severe labor and capacity shortages that make it difficult to sustain above-trend growth,” Thieliant said. He predicted that “activity will remain sluggish for now.” <\/p>\n

\"japan<\/figure>\n

Japanese companies that sell goods overseas are facing uncertainty from escalating global trade tensions. The country’s big automakers, including Toyota<\/span> (TM<\/a><\/span>)<\/span>, Nissan<\/span> (NSANF<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> and Honda<\/span> (HMC<\/a><\/span>)<\/span>, are worried about US President Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on car imports<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Japan’s economy has another danger on the horizon: the government is scheduled to hike the sales tax in the fall of next year. The last time it did so, Japan plunged into a recession. <\/p>\n

Consumers are expected to give the economy a lift ahead of the increase by rushing to make purchases, but “a renewed slump in spending once the tax has been raised is all but guaranteed,” Thieliant said. <\/p>\n

CNNMoney (Hong Kong) <\/span> First published August 10, 2018: 1:10 AM ET<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan has bounced back from a poor start to the year. The world’s third-largest economy grew at an annualized rate of 1.9% in the second quarter, according to government figures released Friday. Boosted by a jump in spending by consumers, the performance beat economists’ expectations and marks a recovery from a contraction in the first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}