Japan economic growth expected to be fast despite minor setback

Japan's economy was one of the first to officially leave the recession and is now expected to grow faster than other developed nations, according to IMF forecasts.

The IMF expects economic growth of 1.7% in 2010, versus 1.5% in the US and 0.9% in the UK. Nevertheless, after a strong bounce from the March lows, recent weeks have seen Japanese equities lag the ongoing recovery seen in those other markets. At the end of August, a landslide victory in Lower House elections by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) brought an end to more than half a century of dominance by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). While the DPJ’s win was a milestone event, it was widely anticipated and had little immediate impact on the market. Once in office, however, remark...