2002年09月26日
昨日発表された、IMFの「世界経済見通し」から日本についての記述部分を抜粋しました。
「日本 : 成長の兆しは見えるのか?」
Japan: Are Growth Prospects Picking
Activity appears to have bottomed out in Japan,after the third, and most severe, recession in the last decade.
A modest rebound is projected for the remainder of this year and in 2003, although it remains subject to downside risks.
The fundamental issue in Japan, however, continues to be how to achieve more rapid underlying rates of output growth, and break the decade-long pattern of anemic performance interspersed with recession.
This cannot be achieved by macroeconomic policies alone, but requires decisive action to deal with long-standing structural impediments.
Such action is most important in the banking sector, where a vicious circle needs to be broken in which large unrecognized nonperforming loans make banks unwilling to lend,hurting financial intermediation and activity, and thereby creating new nonperforming loans to replace those being written off.
Activity appears to have stabilized in early 2002.
The revised national income accounts indicate that activity accelerated modestly over the first half of this year, underpinned by net exports, while private domestic demand remained relatively weak.
More recent indicators suggest that business investment is likely to begin to recover by late 2002,although retail sales remain sluggish.
High levels of slack remain, and deflation of about 1 percent a year persists, magnifying real debt burdens.
Wealth destruction continues, with equity prices down since the start of the year and land prices continuing to fall, putting additional pressure on bank balance sheets.
Real GDP is projected to fall by !/2 percent in 2002 (on an annual basis) before staging modest positive growth of about 1 percent in 2003.
This anticipates a gradual recovery in private domestic demand, with private consumption growing somewhat in the second half of 2002 and business investment recovering late in the year.
The contribution from net exports, however, is expected to weaken as rising domestic demand boosts imports and the appreciation of the yen erodes competitiveness.
Higher private spending is partly offset by fiscal consolidation, with government investment declining in the latter part of 2002 asspending associated with past fiscal stimulus packages wanes, while the 2003 structural fiscal deficit is projected to fall by about 1 percent of GDP, although some of this decline may be offset by tax cuts that are likely to be announced soon.
While the economy could recover more rapidly, particularly if global activity picks up more quickly than currently expected, downside risks predominate.
The recent appreciation of the yen highlights the susceptibility of the recovery to external influences, including further appreciation or weaker global recovery.
A further fall in equity prices could also affect activity by eroding confidence and dealing a further blow to the difficult financial position of the banks, already weakened by slow growth and falling asset prices.
Over the last decade, the authorities have adopted a gradualist approach to reform, rather than taking decisive action to solve long-standing structural weaknesses exposed by the bursting of the asset price bubble in the early 1990s.
This approach has come at a considerable cost to the Japanese economy in terms of activity, wealth destruction, and unemployment .
Countercyclical macroeconomic policies have been unable to ignite self-sustaining growth or avoid deflation becoming entrenched, despite stimulus measures that helped to increase net debt excluding social security to over 100 percent of GDP, and gross debt to 140 percent of GDP,and reduced short-term interest rates to zero.
In a break with the past, in 2001 the government of newly elected prime minister Koizumi presented a broad strategy to address Japan’s fundamental
economic problems.
This strategy encompassed banking reform, fiscal consolidation, and corporate restructuring and deregulation, and the government is expected to announce another economic package that will provide further details of its reform proposals in coming weeks.
Existing initiatives include recently completed special inspections of the
accuracy of classification of major bank loans to particularly weak large corporations; accelerating major banks’ disposal of the worst nonperforming
loans; encouraging a reduction of banks’equity holdings; setting procedures for formal and informal rehabilitation of distressed companies; a \30 trillion (6 percent of GDP) limit on central government bond issuance in this fiscal
year; and establishing broad goals for mediumterm fiscal consolidation.
While these are welcome steps, additional initiatives appear necessary to address the structural impediments confronting the Japanese economy and hence to significantly improve medium-term growth rospects, so as to achieve the following:
• Improve banks’ financial health and profitability
through full recognition of the quality of all bank loans; recapitalize viable banks, possibly
using public funds, but subject to strong conditionality;
promote the exit of nonviable banks;
and scale down the role of government financial institutions.
Forcefully tackling the underlying problems faced by the banks is a prerequisite for the planned removal of the blanket guarantee on demand deposits next April.
• Accelerate corporate restructuring
by giving banks stronger time-bound incentives to agree realistic restructuring plans with viable firms and to carry out the rapid and complete disposal of the assets of nonviable ones.
• Increase the credibility of the medium-term fiscal consolidation
strategy
by setting a medium-term debt target and broad objectives for major budget categories, to help maintain investor confidence in an environment of high and rapidly rising debt.
Turning to the short-term macroeconomic stance, bolder monetary stimulus should be used to support the emerging recovery; given the difficult underlying fiscal position, however, consolidation should be initiated unless bold structural policies are undertaken.
Specifically,
• A more aggressive monetary stimulus is needed to support economic activity, comprising a public commitment to end deflation in no more than
12–18 months, backed by further quantitative easing.
The recent appreciation of the yen bolsters the case for further easing, as it will negatively affect activity and prices if sustained.
Although there is a possibility that aggressive quantitative easing could result in excessive yen weakness, the regional impact should likely be
manageable given the movement toward flexible exchange rates and healthier reserve and external debt positions. Regional effects would be further mitigated if quantitative easing were combined with the initiatives needed to revive Japan’s medium-term growth; and
• In the absence of appropriate restructuring initiatives, the focus of fiscal policy should move toward the initiation of gradual consolidation to stabilize the debt ratio in the medium term.
Given the unsustainable fiscal situation―net debt excluding social security is projected to rise to over 120 percent of GDP by the end of fiscal year 2002/03―it is critical that the authorities clarify their medium-term consolidation strategy.
That said, if appropriate structural policies are followed, which could engender a negative short-run impact on activity, steps should be taken to attain a neutral fiscal stance in the short term.
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