Japan's Q4 2017 GDP seen revised up as capex rises – Reuters poll

The result of the latest Reuters poll of economists showed that a majority of them see the Japanese economy expanding at a faster growth rate in the final quarter of 2017 versus previously estimated.

Key Findings via Reuters:

“The economy was expected to have expanded an annualized 0.9 percent in October-December, revised up from the initial reading of 0.5 percent, the poll of 19 economists found.  

This would translate into a 0.2 percent rise on a quarter-on-quarter basis from the preliminary reading of 0.1 percent.

Capital expenditure, a key component of the gross domestic product, was seen likely to have risen 1.2 percent for the quarter, better than the 0.7 percent of the growth in the preliminary data.

Capital expenditure rose for the fifth consecutive quarter in October-December, affirming companies’ willingness to invest.

The poll also found the Bank of Japan is expected to keep its short-term interest rate at minus 0.1 percent and the 10-year government bond yield target at around zero percent when policymakers meet on March 8-9.”

The poll also expected a current account surplus of around 310 billion yen ($2.92 billion) in January, falling from December’s 797.2 billion yen surplus partly due to higher oil prices.