"It seems
everything has weakened slightly. I'm a
bit worried,"
-- Finance Minister Masajuro
Shiokawa
"The recession is
here,"
-- Jesper Koll, Chief Economist,
Merrill Lynch
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It's a far cry from 1989, when Japan
briefly saw its economic output and its
stock-market value surpass the United
States. News of Japan's beleaguered
banks, of punch-drunk investors
dragging the yen and Nikkei lower, and
of the nation’s declining trade
surplus, off 60 percent, are just the
latest in a long stream of negatives
out of Tokyo.
Even the mighty
Japanese electronics industry, once the
foundation on which Japan became an
economic monster, is reeling from a
plunge in demand from the West.
Now, with China on
the ascent, the question arises: How
long can Japan remain the
second-biggest economy in the world?
Experts call for wholesale reform to
the finance sector. Yet fear in a
repeat of 1997 looms, then Prime
Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's Big Bang
reforms came too quickly and
precipitated a disastrous economic
slump.
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