New Delhi (NVI): Japan’s economy expanded by 5 per cent in the third quarter of 2020 as the country’s rebound from Covid-19 produced its first quarter of growth in a year.
The results also beat economist expectations of 4.4 percent growth, and analysts said the recovery was likely to continue into the final quarter of the year.
A rise in domestic demand as well as exports helped drive the quarter-on-quarter growth, after the coronavirus pandemic and a consumption tax hike slammed the economy into reverse earlier in the year.
The positive figures come after three quarters of contraction in the world’s third-largest economy, with revised data showing the economy shrank 8.2 percent in Q2, more than the previously estimated 7.9 percent.
That was the worst figure for Japan since comparable data became available in 1980, exceeding even the brutal impact of the 2008 global financial crisis.
The nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic activity, grew 5.0 per cent in the third quarter from the preceding three-month period. It expanded at an annualized pace of 21.4 per cent.
The results exceeded expectations. Economists had expected a quarterly increase of 4.2 per cent and an annualized 18 per cent jump, according to a survey by Nikkei affiliate QUICK.
The rebound marks the fastest pace of growth since the fourth quarter of 1968.
The July-September performance was led by growth in exports, such as autos to the U.S. and semiconductors to China. Demand for semiconductors has been helped by a shift to work-from-home and the need for cloud-computing services.
So far, Japan has recorded more than 1,18,000 cases of coronavirus meanwhile nearly 1,900 deaths have been reported.
-CHK
