Antonio Hermosín
Tokyo, Aug 17 (EFE) .- The Japanese economy shrank 1.6 percent in the second quarter at an annual rate, which is a new setback for the economic strategy Government, known as “Abenomics” and raises the pressure on it to implement additional stimulus measures.
The gross domestic product (GDP) in the third world economy shrank between April and June burdened by the Weak consumption and exports, and compared to the previous quarter slowed 0.4 percent.
This is the first slowdown of Japan’s GDP growth after six months that ended their registered between April and September 2014, and takes place after the first quarter the Japanese economy to expand at a solid pace of 3.9 percent year on year.
Although technical recession coming fall on the forecasts of analysts, again highlighting the worrying weakness in domestic consumption and the dependence of Japanese industry of Chinese economy mired in a slowdown, factors that threaten to pinch to Japan.
Japanese Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy, Akira Amari, attributed the contraction to “seasonal factors” and said in press conference that is expected to rebound in GDP in July-September.
Consumption, which represents nearly 60 percent of Japan’s GDP, contracted by 0.8 percent compared to January-March, due to reasons such as bad weather or rising food and other commodities, according to Japanese analysts said.
This was the first decline since April-June 2014, when entered into force IVA rise, which shows that wage growth promoted by the government of Shinzo Abe since then have not been sufficient to maintain consumption Robust domestic.
Exports, the engine of GDP another Japanese, meanwhile fell 4.4 percent as a direct result of the bursting of the Chinese economy, Japan’s main trading partner, and its effects in other Southeast Asian countries.
In this sense, the “little predictable acceleration of China’s economy” in the coming months is “a risk factor” for Japan’s GDP, said economist Kenji Tanaka , the Japan Development Bank, told the local agency Kyodo.
Also, corporate capital investment, another indicator that the current government is to relaunch the economy improving, he showed a decline of 0.1 percent.
In contrast, public investment, strengthened by the economic reform program of the Government, remained at a good level and showed a quarterly growth of 2.6 percent.
In this situation, the government “has no plans for now to take additional measures” stimulus, although they continue to pressure large corporations for their profit impact on the purchasing power of employees, according to Economy Minister said, Finance.
Although many large Japanese companies reported record profits in 2014, “have not yet implemented adequate wage or made heavy capital investment increases,” said Amari, who stressed the need to “reverse this dynamic “.
Some Japanese economists argue that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) should lend fresh impetus to the economy with additional easing measures, while others warn that this would devalue the yen more, which in turn raise the price of imports and damage to already weak domestic consumption.
In fact, expectations for new stimulus encouraged today to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which closed with gains despite the contraction in GDP.
The BoJ in April 2013 triggered a massive asset purchase program -the main tool “Abenomics.” – with the idea of expanding the monetary base and leave behind nearly two decades of deflation
In any case, the effectiveness of “Abenomics” becomes a delicate question for the government of conservative Prime Minister, after seeing his popularity resented military reform and the revival of the first reactor in Japan time after two years of nuclear outage.
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