Japan’s gross domestic product in Q4 Upgraded

The Japanese economy is projected to grow faster in the last three months of 2017 versus the originally estimated pace, this is due to increasing bullish capital spending as shown in the Reuters poll on Friday. The survey further presented that the Bank of Japan could possibly sustain its current stimulus policies at its meeting scheduled next week.

The estimated economic expansion was 0.9 percent on an annualized basis in October- December, as it was revised upwards from the preliminary forecast of 0.5 percent according to the poll among 19 economists. It accounts for a 0.2 percent increase on a quarterly basis from the initial reading of 0.1 percent. The Finance Ministry published a data yesterday which presents companies in Japan boosted its investments in plant and equipment in the previous quarter. This convinced economists to raise their economic growth forecasts.

Capital expenditure is known to be the main factor of gross domestic product, it was able to climb by 1.2 percent compared with the 0.7 percent growth in the initial data. The ascent was recorded for the fifth time in the last quarter which indicates the companies’ investment approval.

Reportedly, the third largest economy in the world had eight consecutive quarters of economic growth, it recorded the longest expansion since the 12-quarter boost during the boom years in 1980s.

Moreover, the Cabinet Office will issue the revised GDP data on March 8 Thursday at 8:50 a.m (2350 GMT March 7). The survey also showed that the Bank of Japan plans to maintain its short-term interest rate at minus 0.1 percent and the target for the 10-year government bond yield will remain near the zero percent upon the meeting of policymakers on March 8-9. In addition to it, the current account surplus in January is predicted to be at 310 billion yen ($2.92 billion), which is lower than 797.2 billion yen December surplus slightly because of the surge in oil prices.

Household expenditure of the country declined by 1.2 percent for the month of January from a year ago, showing an acceleration from the 0.1 percent fall in December. This could further result to expensive prices in gasoline and vegetables according to the poll.

The finance ministry will make an announcement regarding the current account balance on  March 8 at 8:50 a.m Japan time while the internal affairs ministry will issue the household spending on March 9 at 8:30 a.m.