Between July and September, or the third quarter of 2016, Japan posted a 0.5% expansion of the economy and a 2.2% rise in gross domestic product (GDP). However, this excelerated unexpected expansion is only expected to be temporary. While the forth quarter could still bring economic improvement to Japan, it is unlikely it will continue expand at this pace. Japanese goods have become cheaper to the world due to the weakining of the yen, thus substantially increasing its exports which are largely the explanation of why Japan’s economy experienced the growth it did during the third quarter.
Japan’s economy first began to weaken in the 1990’s, due to their aging population that had made their economy great and had made them a world power in the last decades of the twentieth century. It further weakend in 2008 with the worldwide recession and again in 2011 when disaster struck in the forms of an earthquake, a tsunami, and their subsequent effects on Japan and its people. Their economy is beginning to recover though, with the help of the institution of stimulus programs and also with their mass exports. However, despite the improving of the economy, it’s risky for Japan to rely too heavily on exports. A country cannot sufficiently thrive soley by exporting or soley by importing, as a country must both export to turn a profit and must imort necessary items. Therefore Japan must find a way, possibly through imports and exports, to sustain this economic growth to further the country economically and in world affairs.