Japan upgrades assessment of domestic economy

The Japanese government on Wednesday upgraded its assessment on its economy for the first time in 21 months, with upturn in corporate exports and consumer spending.

The cabinet office on Wednesday released the monthly economic report for December, saying "The Japanese economy is on a moderate recovery".

The report said "delayed improvement in part can be seen" instead of "weakness can be seen recently", which had been used for nine straight months through November.

However, the report maintained its earlier assessment on capital spending, saying the improvement in business investment appears to be "pausing". With the world's third largest economy to combat persistent deflation, weak consumer and corporate spending has been a difficult problem for the Abe administration.

On Tuesday, the Bank of Japan, the country's central bank, upgraded its economic assessment saying a moderate recovery trend has continued while exports have picked up.

However, the bank noted that in spite of an upbeat overall assessment based on a flurry of better-than-expected economic data recently, its reflationary efforts still remained pressured.

The report also reminded of uncertainties of overseas economy as it is currently difficult to tell details of economic policies of the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Endit