Japan economy suffers worst drop in over five years

Japan's economy suffered its worst quarterly contraction in more than five years at the end of 2019 after a tax hike and typhoons. According to official data today, the nation's gross domestic product in the three months to December shrank 1.6 percent from the previous quarter, before the novel coronavirus outbreak in China hit Japan. The drop was much worse



than the one-percent contraction economists had expected.

The disappointing data snapped four quarters of expansion and was the biggest contraction since the second quarter of 2014 when the economy shrank 1.9 percent after the first sales tax hike in 17 years was introduced.