Japan Economics Weekly State of emergency extension, Olympic fifth wave? While the fourth wave of coronavirus has broken, with hospital capacity still stretched the government will today extend the emergency declarations covering half of the economy until 20 th June. That... 28th May 2021 · 6 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Disappointing Q1, Moderna & AZ jabs approved Due to the economy faring worse than we had expected in Q1, we’ve significantly revised down our 2021 GDP forecast. Even so Japan’s economy is still on course for a strong recovery later in the year... 21st May 2021 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Recovery delayed as vaccine rollout still too slow The vaccination rollout failed to accelerate markedly after the Golden Week holidays. This is entirely due to logistical challenges rather than insufficient vaccine supply, which should be resolved... 14th May 2021 · 8 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Resilient economic activity not necessarily good news While economic activity appears to have held up well so far in Q2, daily cases are close to record highs at the nationwide level. Indeed, the government is today set to announce an extension of the... 7th May 2021 · 4 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Chip shortages set to ease, vaccine passports The rebound in industrial production in March is consistent with our view that the second state of emergency wasn’t as damaging as many had feared. And while the chip shortages that are plaguing car... 30th April 2021 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Economy to stagnate in first half of the year The states of emergency set to begin in four major prefectures on Sunday will knock back Japan’s economic recovery and should mean that output stagnates across the first half of 2021. While the... 23rd April 2021 · 7 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Kansai emergency looming, jabs to pick up soon The continued surge in daily infections makes it highly likely that states of emergency will be declared again for at least the hard hit prefectures of Osaka and Hyogo. If the spread intensifies... 16th April 2021 · 6 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly UK variant taking hold in Osaka, July snap election? Signs the recent surge in infections in the Osaka area is being driven by more infectious strains raises the risk of more draconian restrictions being needed to break the fourth wave of coronavirus... 9th April 2021 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Fourth wave fears, pace of inoculations slow until May The jump in retail sales in February and the strong rise in the Q1 Tankan released today confirm that the economy weathered the second state of emergency far better than the first. And there is... 1st April 2021 · 4 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly In with the TOPIX, car chipmaker fire, mobility surge While we revised up our forecasts for long-term US Treasury yields this week, we've left our upbeat forecasts for Japanese equities unchanged. One major change we have made though is to switch our... 26th March 2021 · 8 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Vaccine rollout kicking into gear, emergency over With Japan initially entirely reliant on imports of the Pfizer vaccine, many initial concerns over the speed of the vaccine rollout centred on supply constraints. However, that hasn't been an issue... 19th March 2021 · 4 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Legacy of Fukushima nuclear meltdown 10 years on On the 10 th anniversary of the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, we take a closer look at the disaster’s lasting legacy of higher electricity prices. On the eve of the pandemic... 12th March 2021 · 7 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Risk averse Tokyo, mass vaccinations yet to begin While the Bank of Japan’s consumption index fell a bit more sharply than we were anticipating in January, it came off the back of an upwardly revised, virus-era-high in December. Indeed, our GDP... 5th March 2021 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Bank of Japan likely to cap bond yields before long The global surge in long-term interest rates means that 10-year JGB yields are now the highest they have been since the launch of negative rates in 2016. While we expect the Bank of Japan to widen the... 26th February 2021 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Economy entered lockdown with strong momentum The pick-up in GDP in Q4 was stronger than most had anticipated. And while it still left output 2.9% below the peak reached ahead of 2019’s sales tax hike, other economic data released this week are... 19th February 2021 · 6 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Sanguine January, TOPIX hits a 30-year high Timely data for January suggest that economic activity has held up far better than during the previous state of emergency last spring. And with the government mulling lifting the state of emergency... 11th February 2021 · 8 mins read
