Japan shows resilience as GDP beats expectations

Japan's economy performed better than expected in the second quarter, indicating relative resilience in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake.

Japanese GDP shrank by 0.3% between April and June on a seasonally adjusted basis, beating consensus expectations of a 0.7% fall. The annualised drop of 1.3% was also ahead of expectations of a 2.6% decline. Private consumption and export growth performed less badly than had been feared, down 0.1% and 0.8% respectively against expectations of falls of 0.5% and 0.9%. "Early indicators such as the PMIs suggest the economy continued to recover at the start of Q3 and, as output still has some way to go to recover to pre-disaster levels, we expect a strong rise in GDP during the second ...