Japan makes recession official
Japan is now in recession as its economy shrank for the second straight quarter, the government says.
The declaration comes just a week after the US was pronounced in recession.
According to government data, Japan's gross domestic product shrank 0.5% for the quarter ended in September.
The drop for the third quarter translates into an annualised contraction of 2.2%.
Although economists had been warning about a recession for months, the report makes Japan's recession official. Recession is usually defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
For the previous quarter ended in June, Japan's GDP shrank 1.2% according to revised figures released on Friday. Japan eked out 1.0% growth in the quarter which ended in March.
The latest figures show declines in private consumption as well as in both exports and imports, although corporate capital investment and public investment rose.
Analysts say the problems Japan faces are more severe than those for the United States.
To bail out its economy, Japan needs basic change - such as cleaning up the banks' bad debts, easing government regulations to encourage competition and ending the pork-barrel public works spending of old-style politics.
Last month, the government gave up the initial target of 1.7% growth for the fiscal year and acknowledged the economy would probably contract 0.9%.
