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Japan’s economy grew 4.1 per cent during January-March, as the Government revised a preliminary estimate of a 3.5 per cent expansion, it said today.
The figure exceeded the 3.5 per cent growth predicted by a poll of economists by the Nikkei business daily.
Domestic demand rose 0.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter, revised up from an initial estimate of a 0.5 per cent expansion, the Cabinet Office said.
Corporate capital spending edged down 0.3 per cent in the three months through March, rather than the earlier estimate of 0.7 per cent contraction. Private consumption — which accounts for about 60 per cent of gross domestic product — was unchanged at 0.9 per cent, the office said.
The Bank of Japan started to take aggressive monetary easing measures under new Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to pull the world’s third-largest economy out of 15 years of deflation.
The bank decided to double the monetary base to 270 trillion yen ($2.75 trillion) by the end of 2014, from 138 trillion yen at the end of 2012.
Kuroda, who took office in March, vowed to reach a 2 per cent inflation target within about two years.
In April, the central bank upgraded the nation’s economic growth outlook for the current financial year, thanks to the global economic recovery.
The economy was set to expand 2.9 per cent for the year to March 2014, up from an earlier prediction of 2.3 per cent growth, the bank said.
The bank will announce a monetary policy decision on Tuesday.
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