By Makiko Yamazaki and Satoshi Sugiyama<\/p>\n
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s economy contracted an annualised 1.8% in the July-September \u200bquarter, the first fall in six quarters, due to a hit to exports \u200cfrom U.S. tariffs, government data showed on Monday.<\/p>\n
The decline, while not as steep as expected, could complicate \u200cthe Bank of Japan’s plans to raise interest rates further. Analysts are now focusing on how soon the world’s fourth-largest economy will overcome the tariff impact and rebound.<\/p>\n
The decrease in gross domestic product was narrower than a median market estimate of a 2.5% fall in a Reuters poll.<\/p>\n
It \u2060followed revised growth of 2.3%\u200c in the previous quarter, when the economy got an extra boost from solid exports that reflected front-loading shipments to the U.S. as \u200dJapan’s tariffs negotiations lingered.<\/p>\n
Washington formalised a trade agreement with Tokyo in September, implementing a baseline 15% tariff on nearly all Japanese imports, down from the initial 27.5% on autos and a 25% \u200bduty threatened for most other goods.<\/p>\n
The third-quarter reading translated into a quarterly fall of 0.4%\u200c, better than the median estimate of a 0.6% contraction.<\/p>\n
Private consumption, which accounts for more than half of economic output, rose 0.1%, matching a market estimate.<\/p>\n
But that cooled from the 0.4% rise in the second quarter, indicating that high food costs kept households reluctant to spend.<\/p>\n
Net external demand, or exports minus imports, knocked 0.2 of \u2060a percentage point off growth, versus a 0.2 \u200bpoint positive contribution in the April-June period.<\/p>\n
Capital spending, \u200ba key driver of private demand-led growth, rose 1.0% in the third quarter, versus a rise of 0.3% in the Reuters poll.<\/p>\n
The \u200dweak GDP data comes \u2060as new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is compiling a stimulus package to cushion the blow to households from the rising living costs.<\/p>\n
Close economic advisers to Takaichi have cited a likely \u2060sharp GDP contraction as a reason for aggressive stimulus measures.<\/p>\n
The latest data could embolden those advisers to call for the BOJ \u200cto go slow in raising interest rates, analysts say.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Makiko \u200cYamazaki and Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Jamie Freed)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Makiko Yamazaki and Satoshi Sugiyama TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s economy contracted an annualised 1.8% in the July-September…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1879,114,85234,85,46,1437,13549,23071],"class_list":["post-137116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bank-of-japan","tag-business","tag-government-data","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-japan","tag-reuters-poll","tag-sanae-takaichi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}