Japan’s GDP grew 7.5% year-on-year in 2nd quarter
Tokyo, Aug 16 (EFE).- Japan’s gross domestic product grew 7.5 percent between April and June compared to the same period of the previous year, mainly driven by the recovery in consumption, according to government data published Monday.
Compared to the first quarter of 2021, the world’s third largest economy grew 0.3 percent, due to the persistent impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to preliminary data from the Japanese Cabinet Office.
The economic growth in the second quarter of this year is mainly due to the 7.3 percent increase in household consumption, the main pillar of Japan’s GDP, which had been suffering from the successive states of emergency in the country. Citizens reacted with increasing indifference to this despite the rebound in infections.
Domestic spending increased 7.2 percent year-on-year and 0.8 percent compared to the previous quarter, after falling in the first three months of 2021 together with a new emergency declaration that lasted from January through March.
Authorities declared a new state of emergency in late April that lasted until the end of June and even then maintained certain restrictions until a new declaration just before the Tokyo Olympics.
But the successive health alerts have generated a “pandemic fatigue” and the celebration of the international sporting event has sent contradictory messages that have caused some complacency among citizens. This has led them to return to a certain normality despite the record levels of infections.
In addition to the notable increase in consumption, the increase in exports weighed, 26.3 percent year-on-year and 2.9 percent compared to the previous quarter, in line with the recovery in global demand and the normalization of trade relations.
Corporate equity investment grew by 0.9 percent year-on-year (compared to the 3.2 percent contraction in the previous quarter) and the increase was 1.1 percent in quarter-on-quarter terms, while public investment decreased by 1.2 year-on-year and 1.5 percent quarter-on-quarter. EFE
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