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Japan Economy

Japan is a mountainous, volcanic island nation in East Asia, on the Pacific Ocean. China, Taiwan, Russia, North Korea and South Korea are its neighboring countries. Japan is popularly called the "Land of the Rising Sun" as the characters in its name mean "sun-origin". Japan is made of up 6,852 islands, most of which are mountainous (some even volcanic). Tokyo is the world’s largest metropolitan area and home to 30 million people. Japan is the 10th most populated country in the world, with around 128 million residents. The country boasts a modern and extensive military force that aims at self-defense and peace promotion. The standard of living is one of the highest in the world, with the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate.

Japan Economy: Till Date

The world’s second-largest economy only after the US and Asia’s largest economy, Japan is a powerful country. It is the only member of G8 from Asia and also a member of the UN Security Council on a temporary basis. The wages in Tokyo are the highest in the world, according to the Big Mac Index. Japan’s swift economic growth from the 1960s to the 1980s is called the Japanese post-war economic miracle, with a growth rate of 10%, 5% and 4%. It was in the late 1980s that Japan’s economy overheated due to falling stock and real estate prices, a phase called the Japanese asset price bubble. However, the situation turned bad in 1989, with the crashing of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Even in the 1990s the country’s economic growth remained slow. During that period there was only a 1.5% rise in the GDP annually. Moreover, in the 2000s, Japan’s GDP rose at 0.8% annually. The economy rose at an average of 2.1% a year from 2003 to 07, and shrank by 1.2% in 2008 and by 5.0% in 2009. 

Japan Economic Profile: Statistics

 

GDP (purchasing power parity):

           

Japan Exports 2008

 

 

        GDP (official exchange rate):

 

       $5.049 trillion (2009 est.)

 

        GDP - real growth rate:

 

  • -5.7% (2009 est.)

  • -0.7% (2008 est.)

  • 2.3% (2007 est.)

     

     

        GDP - per capita (PPP):

 

  • $32,600 (2009 est.)

  • $34,500 (2008 est.)

  • $34,700 (2007 est.)

     

     

        Inflation rate (consumer prices):

 

  • -1.3% (2009 est.)

  • 1.4% (2008 est.)

     

     

        Population: 127,430,000 (2010 est.)

 

  • Labor force: 65.93 million (2009 est.)

  • Unemployment rate: 5.6% (2009 est.)