The Cabinet Office said Thursday it has revised downward the nation's gross domestic product data for fiscal 2002, with real growth lowered to 1.2 percent from the 1.6 percent estimated in November.
After scrutinizing the industrial output statistics of fiscal 2002, officials saw that shipments of electronic communications equipment had posted a bigger decline than that stated in the previous estimate.
The 1.2 percent GDP rise marks the first expansion of the world's second-largest economy in two years.
Domestic demand pushed up GDP by 0.4 percent, while external demand drove up GDP by 0.8 percent, according to the revised estimate.
This shows that Japan's economic recovery in fiscal 2002 was led by exports.
On a nominal unadjusted basis, however, GDP fell 0.7 percent to 497.647 trillion yen in fiscal 2002, marking a second straight yearly decline, dipping below 500 trillion yen for the first time in eight years.
The GDP deflator, a major inflation barometer, dropped 1.8 percent.