There are growing signs that Japan's protracted economic slump may be finally coming to an end. Fiscal and monetary measures for recovery are already in place. The fiscal 1999 government budget, with its large public-works outlays and tax cuts, has cleared the Diet ahead of schedule. The Bank of Japan, its interest rates set at near-zero levels, is pumping money into the financial system. Debt-burdened banks have gained a new lease on life, or so it seems, thanks to massive infusions of public capital.

All this has given a boost to the stock market, even despite last week's grim report that Japan's jobless rate in February climbed to 4.6 percent, a record high level since 1953 when the government began compiling employment data. In its "tankan" survey announced this week, furthermore, the central bank has reported that Japanese businesses now are less gloomy about the economy.

This basically underscored the Economic Planning Agency's monthly report for March: There are "palpable stirrings of change" and "the downward momentum is coming to a halt." Public opinion polls and surveys of business executives also reveal positive signs that the nation's worst postwar slump, triggered by the collapse of the asset-inflated economy at the start of this decade, is coming to an end.