By Satoshi Sugiyama<\/p>\n
TOKYO, June 8 (Reuters) – Japan’s economy lost momentum in the January-March quarter from the previous three months over sluggish capital expenditure, \u200crevised gross domestic product (GDP) data showed on Monday, pointing to challenges ahead \u200cdue to the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n
The GDP figures released by the Cabinet Office showed the economy \u200bexpanded an annualised 1.8% in the first quarter, compared with the initially estimated 2.1%. Economists’ median forecast was for 1.3% growth.<\/p>\n
Without annualisation, GDP grew 0.5%, slightly better than the median forecast for a 0.3% expansion and matching the preliminary figure.<\/p>\n
Private \u200cconsumption, which accounts for more \u2060than half of Japan’s economy, increased 0.3%, also matching the initial data.<\/p>\n
Businesses’ capital expenditure shrank 0.7% in the first quarter, \u2060revised down from the initial estimate for a 0.3% rise and compared with an estimated 0.9% drop.<\/p>\n
External demand, or exports minus imports, added 0.3 percentage point to GDP, \u200bunchanged \u200bfrom the preliminary data. Domestic demand contributed \u200b0.2 of a percentage point, also \u200cmatching the initial figure.<\/p>\n
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government on Wednesday finalised a $19 billion supplementary budget for this fiscal year to cushion the impact of rising energy costs on households from the Middle East crisis.<\/p>\n
U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February and Tehran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which normally \u200ccarries a fifth of global oil and \u200bgas, have sent prices soaring and raised fears \u200bof a major disruption to \u200benergy flows.<\/p>\n
Japan’s heavy reliance on Middle Eastern oil leaves it \u200cacutely exposed. Rising fuel costs are stoking \u200binflation, eroding household \u200bpurchasing power and tightening corporate margins, heightening the risk of a severe economic downturn if disruptions persist.<\/p>\n
The Bank of Japan will hold a two-day \u200bpolicy meeting next week. \u200cSources told Reuters the bank is expected to raise interest rates \u200bthis month unless a sharp escalation in the conflict roils markets.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Sam Holmes)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Satoshi Sugiyama TOKYO, June 8 (Reuters) – Japan’s economy lost momentum in the January-March quarter from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,47592,182430,1294,53348,212524,386,212523,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-626980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-cabinet-office","tag-capital-expenditure","tag-economy","tag-gross-domestic-product","tag-initial-data","tag-japan","tag-japan39s-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}