Japan’s economy grew an annualised 2.2 percent in the second quarter, as robust private consumption provided a boost to the country’s long-delayed recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The relatively strong economic data released on Monday comes after gross domestic product (GDP) grew just 0.1 percent during the January-March period.
The growth was driven largely by a 1.1 percent rise in private consumption, which accounts for more than half of Japan’s GDP, as dining out, leisure and travel rebounded following the lifting of pandemic curbs in March.
The latest results mean Japan’s 542.12 trillion yen ($4.07 trillion) economy is now larger than it was before the pandemic hit.
The world’s third-largest economy, however, still faces an uncertain road to recovery amid slowing global growth and rising inflation, supply chain constraints, a weakening yen, and a resurgence in domestic COVID-19 infections, which have topped 200,000 daily cases in recent weeks.
In July, the International Monetary Fund cut Japan’s growth outlook for 2022 to 1.7 percent, down from 2.4 percent in April.
Japan’s economic recovery from the pandemic has lagged other countries due to weak consumption, which has been exacerbated by ongoing border controls and domestic pandemic restrictions that continued until March.
The weak recovery has turned the Bank of Japan into a global outlier, with it sticking to an ultra-loose monetary policy as other central banks raise rates to tame rising inflation, Al Jazeera reports.
