Japan’s gross domestic product increased by 1 percent in annualized terms in the three months
through December, the government’s Cabinet Office said in a preliminary estimate.
Output in the country, which has the world’s third-largest economy
but has struggled to shake off deflation, expanded in each quarter last year, the longest uninterrupted period of growth in three years.
In the last three months of the year, exports surged 11 percent in annualized terms, according to Cabinet Office data.
TOKYO — Japan extended its yearlong streak of modest economic growth in the last three months of 2016, data showed on Monday.
A version of this article appears in print on February 13, 2017, on Page B2 of the New
York edition with the headline: Small Victory for Japan: A 4th Quarter of Growth.
It has become a familiar pattern: Global demand for Japanese cars, chemicals
and other products keeps factories humming, even as domestic spending sputters.
Japan, whose growth is held back by a shrinking population, had not increased its output for four straight quarters since 2012-13.
Investment by businesses was up 3.8 percent, although much of that, too, is linked to exports as companies gear up factories to sell things abroad.
In Japan, Another Quarter of Modest Growth Represents a Victory -
By JONATHAN SOBLEFEB.