Japan Q3 GDP growth plunges to three-year low at 1.2%

The decline is driven by a slowdown in external and domestic demands.

Japan’s economic growth contracted by an annualised rate of 1.2% in Q3 from a 3.0% expansion in Q2.

The slowdown, according to an analysis by UOB, is dragged by a decline in external and domestic demand which dropped by 0.1ppt and 0.2ppt respectively. Private spending also slowed to 0.1% QoQ.

Public fixed investments also contracted to 1.9% QoQ from -0.3%. Despite the 1.8% QoQ decrease in external demand, housing investments grew by 0.6% QoQ.

Furthermore, trade policy developments are being seen as a key downside risks as the Trump administration is proposing to put tariffs on automobile imports from Europe and Japan.

Japan’s Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi attributed the economic decline to weaker domestic consumption brought by natural disasters and fall in exports.

“Beyond the temporary disruption caused by a series of serious natural disasters in 3Q, we
are turning increasingly cautious that moderating global demand in the next few quarters
could be met with increasing global trade uncertainties,” Alvin Liew, senior economist at UOB, said.

UOB now expects a 1.0% GDP growth for 2018, 0.2% lower than their previous prediction last September.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia