Economics
Surprise Drop in Japan Factory Output Adds to Warning Signs
- Disappointing data follows South Korea economic contraction
- Japan’s coming sales-tax hike adds to the uncertainties
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Japan’s factory output unexpectedly fell in March, raising the likelihood that gross domestic product shrank during the first quarter.
The reading on the world’s third-largest economy comes a day after South Korea, a bellwether for world trade and technology, surprised markets in reporting its biggest contraction of GDP in a decade, signaling that the worst of the global slowdown may not have passed.