After three years of Abenomics and record monetary stimulus from the central bank, the economy still cannot escape a roller-coaster cycle of expansion and contraction.
The next round will commence on Monday, when gross domestic product data for the fourth quarter are released. The forecast is pessimistic: that Japan's economy shrank 0.7 percent on an annualized basis in the last three months of 2015, according to the median estimate of 34 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Revised data showed GDP rose 1 percent in the third quarter.
"The GDP report will show Japan's economy is in a very dire situation," said Yoshiki Shinke, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. "There is no driving force for the economy and that's unlikely to stop this quarter." Shinke, who ranked as the top Japan forecaster for the latest Bloomberg GDP survey, predicts a big contraction of 3 percent in the fourth quarter.
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