The Japanese government data released on Wednesday, May 21, revealed that Japan's economy suffered a record postwar shrinkage in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2008 (ended March 31, 2009), hit by a sharp drop in domestic and export demand due to the global economic crisis.
Accordingly, Japan's economic performance, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), contracted by 15.2 percent year on year in the period in question. The drop in GDP was the steepest since Japan began compiling such statistics in 1955.
Japan's GDP in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2008 fell by four percent compared to the previous quarter of the same fiscal year when the index shrank at an annualized 14.4 percent in a government-revised report, in the fourth straight quarter that the economy withered.
The results were significantly worse than other major economies. The euro zone registered a 2.5 percent quarterly decline, and the US shrank by 1.6 percent.
The 15.2 percent contraction of GDP in the fourth quarter is bigger than the 6.1 percent and 9.8 percent estimated for the US and euro zone respectively, compared to the year-ago period.
Real GDP for the FY 2008 declined by 3.5 percent from a year before, surpassing the previous record of minus 1.5 percent recorded in the fiscal year1998.
Commenting on the GDP figures, Japanese finance minister Kaoru Yosano said, "It reflects the fact that the country is mired in a tough situation as the national economy is deteriorating due to the worsening global economic slump."