Japan notched its seventh straight quarter of economic growth, official data showed yesterday, although the rate of expansion in the world’s third-largest economy is slowing.
GDP grew by 0.3 percent in the third quarter of the year, marking the longest string of gains for more than 16 years.
However, the figure represented a slowdown from the second quarter, when the economy grew by 0.6 percent, as a recovery in private consumption appeared to lose steam.
The economy grew by an annualized 1.4 percent, driven mainly by robust exports, the Japanese Cabinet Office said.
“On average, the Japanese economy is on track for a gradual recovery,” Dai-ichi Life Research Institute chief economist Yoshiki Shinke said.
The decline in private consumption growth was due to a “backlash” from the second quarter, where demand was “too strong,” he added.
Domestic demand — which accounts for about 60 percent of Japan’s GDP — contracted 0.2 percent, after a 0.9 percent rise the second quarter.
Shinke said that the weather in Japan was especially poor during the third quarter, which put a dampener on demand in the service sector.
Japan’s economy has been picking up steam, mainly on the back of surging exports, including smartphone parts and memory chips, with investments linked to the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics also giving growth a boost.
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