The economy of Japan is the third largest national economy in the world after the United States and the People's Republic of China and is the world's second largest developed economy According to the International Monetary Fund, the country's per capita GDP (PPP) was at $34,739 or the 25th highest in 2011. Japan is a member of Group of Eight. Japanese economy can be fore-casted by Quarterly Tankan survey of business sentiment by the Bank of Japan.
Japan is the world's 3rd largest automobile manufacturing country, has the largest electronics goods industry, and is often ranked among the world's most innovative countries leading several measures of global patent filings. Facing increasing competition from China and South Korea, manufacturing in Japan today now focuses primarily on high-tech and precision goods, such as optical equipment, hybrid cars, and robotics.
Japan is the world's largest creditor nation, generally running an annual trade surplus and having a considerable net international investment surplus. As of 2010, Japan possesses 13.7% of the world's private financial assets (the 2nd largest in the world) at an estimated $14.6 trillion. As of 2011, 68 of the Fortune 500 companies are based in Japan.
For three decades from 1960, with US military protection that Japan could ignore military spending and instead budgeting on the economy that Japan experienced rapid economic growth, which was referred to as the Japanese post-war economic miracle. By the guidance of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, with average growth rates of 10% in the 1960s, 5% in the 1970s, and 4% in the 1980s, Japan was able to establish and maintain itself as the world's second largest economy from 1968 until 2010, when it was supplanted by the People's Republic of China. By 1990, income per capita in Japan equalled or surpassed that in most countries in the West.
However, in the second half of the 1980s, rising stock and real estate prices caused the Japanese economy to overheat in what was later to be known as the Japanese asset price bubble caused by the policy of low interest rate by Bank of Japan. The economic bubble came to an abrupt end as the Tokyo Stock Exchange crashed in 1990–92 and real estate prices peaked in 1991. Growth in Japan throughout the 1990s at 1.5% was slower than growth in other major developed economies, giving rise to the term Lost Decade. Nonetheless, GDP per capita growth from 2001-2010 has still managed to outpace Europe and the United States. Japan had recently embraced the new strategy of economic growth with such goals to be achieved in 2020 as expected.
A mountainous, volcanic island country, Japan has inadequate natural resources to support its growing economy and large population therefore Japan exports goods in which is has a comparative advantage such as engineering-oriented, Research and Development-led industrial products in exchange for the import of goods which Japan is scarce in such, such as mineral oils, or where production costs are high (as in agriculture). Although many kinds of minerals were extracted throughout the country, most mineral resources had to be imported in the postwar era. Local deposits of metal-bearing ores were difficult to process because they were low grade. The nation's large and varied forest resources, which covered 70 percent of the country in the late 1980s, were not utilized extensively. Because of political decisions on local, prefectural, and national levels, Japan decided not to exploit its forest resources for economic gain. Domestic sources only supplied between 25 and 30 percent of the nation's timber needs. Agriculture and fishing were the best developed resources, but only through years of painstaking investment and toil. The nation therefore built up the manufacturing and processing industries to convert raw materials imported from abroad. This strategy of economic development necessitated the establishment of a strong economic infrastructure to provide the needed energy, transportation, communications, and technological know-how.
Deposits of gold, magnesium, and silver meet current industrial demands, but Japan is dependent on foreign sources for many of the minerals essential to modern industry. Iron ore, copper, bauxite, and alumina must be imported, as well as many forest products.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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