Disaster takes toll on Japan’s economy
By Mure Dickie in Shimokita, Aomori Prefecture
Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami pushed the economy much further into recession than expected, raising doubts about the prospects for the world’s third-largest economy.
According to preliminary data released on Thursday, gross domestic product fell 0.9 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the previous three months. That was nearly twice the decline forecast by economists.
Kaoru Yosano, minister for economics and fiscal policy, said that the March 11 disaster had been the main reason for the fall in output, and insisted that growth would soon return. “The Japanese economy has a great deal of resiliency,” Mr Yosano said.
However, the extent of the first-quarter fall – equivalent to a 3.7 per cent decline on an annualised basis – underscores the scale of the disruption caused by the natural disaster and resulting nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
Japan’s economy has now contracted for two quarters in a row, meeting the most widely used definition of a recession.
Government statisticians now say that output fell 0.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the last three months of 2010, a much sharper decline than the 0.3 per cent initially estimated. Preliminary estimates of Japanese GDP growth are often dramatically revised as more accurate data becomes available.
Frederic Neumann, economist at HSBC Global Research, said the fourth quarter revision suggested that even before the March 11 disaster, the economy’s underlying momentum “wasn’t as robust as widely thought”.
“The ground is slipping,” Mr Neumann wrote in a report.
However, Japan has seen some signs of recovery. The Reuters Tankan survey – a monthly measure of business sentiment modelled on the Bank of Japan’s own Tankan report – this week showed that the mood among manufacturers was improving.
那个形式似乎缺点比较多 回到原来形式
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另外 请大家在跟帖时表明两个数字
1.你是第几次参与 Follow Me
2 是连续第几次
请记住,这不是做给我,或者其他人看,这是做给你自己看的



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