Shinzo Abe Announces 18 Month Sales Tax Hike Delay

Abe also announced an 18-month delay in a controversial sales tax hike during a press conference Tuesday.

The prime minister said he will dissolve the parliament’s lower house on Friday.
The Japanese economy slipped into recession in the third quarter.

Gross domestic product shrank by an annualized 1.6% in the three months ended September, Japan’s Cabinet Office said Monday. The result was much worse than the 2.2% expansion expected by economists.
On a quarterly basis, Japan’s GDP declined by 0.4% as business investment slipped. Economies are commonly described as being in a technical recession after two straight quarterly contractions.

Japan has more government debt that any other nation, a top concern for supporters of the tax rise. Critics say Tokyo must find ways to generate solid growth before turning to fiscal matters.

via CNN

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza