Japan is very rich in terms of its highly developed economy. The country is positioned as third in terms of nominal GDP and fourth in purchasing power parity (PPP). Japan has also occupied the third place in automobile and electronic manufacturing industries and is also listed under the major innovative countries of the world. In the recent era, the main challenges and competition for Japan are China and South Korea. Due to this competition, Japan is mainly concentrating on the manufacture of hybrid vehicles, robots, and optical instruments. Although Japan’s economy is continuously rising, its population is diminishing to a great extent. According to 2015 survey, the Japanese population was initially decreased to 127 million and it is estimated that this declining and aging issues in Japan would continue till the mid of 21st century
During 1960, Japan reduced its expenditure on defense and focused on the industrial development. This was the period between World War 2 and the cold war. Japan accomplished its goal within the three decades by achieving the second world’s largest economy position after The United States of America. However, this development could not stand long as, during 1990’s Japan’s growth was much slower than the other developed countries. This fall sustained for 20 year due to which Japan was named as ‘Lost Decade’.
Japan has insufficient and scarce resources to meet the demands of its growing population. This is the major reason why the country preferred exports to a great extent. Japan is the third largest importing country of agricultural products after the United States and Europe and the first largest importing countries of fish. Although gold, magnesium, and silver are extracted from the country and accomplish the industrial needs, Japan still requires the support of other countries to import iron ore, copper, bauxite, alumina, and other forest products.
The forest of Japan contributes to 70% of the total till the forest was not operated and used properly. Japan then discontinued the forest exploitation and only the timber of Japanese forests was utilized for its industrial and manufacturing work. Since Japan was the importer of raw materials, it decided to construct diverse manufacturing industries to process those raw materials and convert them into valuable products. This modification also advanced the technologies, transportation, energy, and communication that were used for the industrial process.
Economic history of Japan
The economic history of Japan is very popular because of the three major decades and improvements. The first period is known as Edo period (1603), the second period is Meiji restoration (1868), and last is the defeat of World War 2 (the period of major growth).
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