China GDP tops Japan in Q3, but behind over 9 months: govt

TOKYO, (AFP) -China’s economy again beat Japan’s in the third quarter, and Asia’s rising giant remained on course to unseat Japan as the world’s number two economy for the year as a whole, data showed Thursday.

Japan stressed that it remained ahead for the first nine months, thanks to strong growth in the first quarter. But since then it has been outperformed by China, a trend that is expected to continue.

For July-September, China’s nominal gross domestic product of 1.415 trillion dollars beat Japan’s 1.369 trillion, the cabinet office in Tokyo said, quoting average Japan interbank exchange rates and an IMF yuan-dollar rate.

China eclipsed Japan in the second quarter, as the archipelago nation was hit by cooling exports and flat domestic consumption in April-June.

However, Japan’s nominal GDP for January-September was 3.959 trillion dollars while China’s was 3.946 trillion dollars, the official said.

Beijing has been criticised for keeping the yuan artificially low, suggesting that China’s nominal GDP should be even higher, while the recent strength of the yen versus the dollar has pushed up Japan’s nominal figure.

Japan’s on Thursday revised its July-September growth higher to an annualised 4.5 percent from an initial estimate of 3.9 percent.