A fifth consecutive quarter of growth amounts to the longest run of expansion in more than a decade. But weak inflation and stagnant wages suggest it won’ t last.
TOKYO — Japan’s economic engine may not exactly be roaring, but there is a definite hum in the air.
The economy grew for a fifth consecutive quarter at the start of 2017, the longest stretch of growth in more than a decade. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying for four and a half years to coax the economy into a higher gear. Although Japan’s output is still the world’s third-largest, after the United States and China, consistent growth has been elusive — the result of headwinds like a declining population and deflation.
Japanese gross domestic product increased by 2.2 percent in annualized terms in the three months through March, the government’s Cabinet Office said in a preliminary estimate on Thursday. The economy has now been expanding for a longer period than at any time since 2005-6, when it grew for six quarters in a row.
The pace of expansion also accelerated from the previous quarter, and was stronger than economists had expected. Analysts surveyed by news agencies had forecast a growth rate of 1.
