Japan And England Towards Recession, Sri Mulyani Explains The Cause

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the midst of global uncertainty and interest rates continued to increase, causing Japan and Britain to experience a recession.

"This year, several institutions have said that the performance of the economies of developed countries will be quite depressed because the increase in interest rates in various countries is quite high in a very short time," he explained when met by the Jakarta media crew, Tuesday, February 20, 2024.

According to Sri Mulyani, this has caused economic projections and outlooks in several G7 countries to tend to weaken.

In addition, he will attend the G20 meeting in Brazil to see the real global economic conditions.

"This is a challenge for our global environment. So we'll see next week I will attend the G20 in Brazil. There will definitely be an update on the condition of the global economy," he said.

Sri added that developed countries such as Japan and the UK experiencing a recession were already weak enough due to geopolitical problems and high interest rates.

"The countries mentioned earlier that have experienced a recession, yes, they are indeed quite weak, either because of the war in Ukraine which affects mainly Europe but also Japan and Europe in general will also be affected by economic policies, especially rising interest rates," he concluded.

It is known, Japan has officially reported contractions for two consecutive quarters.

The Japanese economy slumped 0.4 percent on an annual basis in the fourth quarter of 2023 after reporting a contraction or a decrease of 3.3 percent in the previous quarter.

In addition, the fourth quarter's GDP report far missed the estimated 1.4 percent growth in a Reuters economist poll. On a quarterly basis, Japan's GDP fell 0.1 percent compared to an estimated 0.3 percent increase in Reuters polls.