The Japanese Finance Ministry raised its assessment of the regional economy for the first time in five years amid a recovery in exports and industrial production.
“Some areas of the economy are showing movements of picking up or leveling out,” the ministry’s local-office chiefs said in a quarterly report in Tokyo yesterday, the first upgrade since April 2004. The economy is in a “severe” state, it said.
A recovery in global demand and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso’s ¥25 trillion (US$264 billion) in stimulus measures are increasing confidence that the worst of the nation’s deepest postwar recession is over. Japan’s exports fell at the slowest pace this year last month and a report due tomorrow is expected to show factory output rose for a fourth month.
The ministry upgraded its assessment in 10 of the country’s 11 regions, the report said. It left unchanged its evaluation of Okinawa, saying conditions “remain severe.”
The Bank of Japan said this month it became more optimistic about regional economies for the first time since January 2006.
Japan’s economy probably grew at an annualized 2.4 percent in the three months ended on June 30, the first expansion in more than a year, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists.
Despite signs that the economy is recovering, all regions said that employment conditions remain severe or are worsening. Japan’s unemployment rate rose to a five-year high of 5.2 percent in May.
Separately, South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy, posted a record current account surplus of just under US$22 billion in the year’s first half, data showed yesterday.
The country’s broadest measure of trade and income was in the black last month for a fifth month running, the central Bank of Korea said, pointing to brisk exports and a sharp fall in imports.
The current account surplus last month was US$5.43 billion, its biggest since a record high of US$6.65 billion in March, the bank said in a report.
The cumulative current account surplus for the first half to last month was a record US$21.75 billion, the bank said.
The current account, which measures trade, service and investment flows with the rest of the world, has been in the black since February.
Lee Young-bog, head of the central bank’s division handling balance-of-payments statistics, said the country would likely post another surplus this month.
“Seasonal factors like summer vacations could prompt the service account deficit to increase,” he told reporters.
“But given expected brisk exports, the country is likely to post a current account surplus of around US$4 billion for July,” Lee said.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2