Raw energy

Spring 2006 has seen an interesting phenomenon - economists upgrading their growth forecasts for Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) this year to levels that are well above those in Europe and fast approaching the US. The reason for this is simple. There are clear signs of the Japanese economy moving in the right direction. For a start, the country's most recent GDP data shows robust annualised growth of 5.4% and detailed analysis reveals that half of the economic growth during the final quarter of 2005 was attributable to domestic demand. This is just the latest evidence of the econo...