TOKYO (AP) — Japan racked up a record current account
deficit in January, and lowered its growth estimate for the
October-December quarter Monday in the latest sign of hardships for the
world’s third-largest economy.
Japan’s current account deficit
totaled 1.589 trillion yen ($15 billion), the biggest for January since
comparable records began in 1985, according to the Finance Ministry.
The
Cabinet Office revised its real gross domestic product growth to an
annual pace of 0.7 percent, lower than its initial 1.0 percent. It said
that both private and public demand was lower than it had estimated last
month, including lower levels for private consumption and public
investment.
The government has encouraged a weak yen to help
exports, a boon to multinational companies such Toyota Motor Corp. But a
cheap yen makes imports more expensive at a time when dependence on
imported oil and natural gas has risen since the March 2011 nuclear
disaster.
Reactors dotting the nation’s coastline have been shut
down for safety fears, but the government wants to restart some of them.
Before the disaster, nuclear energy provided 30 percent of Japan’s
energy needs.
A giant tsunami on March 11, 2011, destroyed backup
generators at Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, setting off multiple meltdowns
and explosions, in the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl in the
Soviet Union in 1986.
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