Longest since 1980s

TOKYO, Feb 14, (AFP): Japan’s economy grew for the eighth straight quarter at the end of 2017, government data showed Wednesday, its longest period of expansion since the “bubble” boom days of the late 1980s.

Gross domestic product figures fell short of expectations and represented a slowdown from the previous quarter, but analysts forecast continued growth nonetheless.

GDP expanded just 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2017, the Cabinet Office said, a far cry from the 0.6 percent figure for July-September.

“The growth rate for the last quarter was very low compared with the bubble period but the economy is solid enough,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute.

“The slowdown was due primarily to inventory adjustments and a decline in the contribution of net exports due to strength in imports,” added analysts at Barclays in a report.

“As such, it did not imply a pull-back in the momentum of economic recovery,” analysts Tetsufumi Yamakawa, Yuichiro Nagai and Yukito Funakubo wrote.

At an annualised rate, the world’s third largest economy grew 0.5 percent, also missing expectations.

“There are lingering worries over consumption but we can expect the economy to pick up further if ‘shunto’ wage hikes are better than the previous years,” said Minami, referring to collective wage negotiations between labour and management held every spring.

“The current expansion could be extended further,” he told AFP.

For the calendar year 2017, the economy grew 1.6 percent, against 0.9 percent in 2016.

Japan’s Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Toshimitsu Motegi said the current expansion was solid compared with the more volatile “bubble” boom in the 1980s, according to Bloomberg News.

Speculative investment in land and stocks on low interest rates, pushed the Nikkei stock index to almost 40,000 in 1989 – nearly double its current level.

But the bubble burst at the start of the 1990s, ushering in a period of low or no growth known as the “lost decades”.

The current period of growth is good news for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been trying to fire up the economy with his pro-spending policy dubbed Abenomics since he took office in late 2012.

Junko Nishioka, chief economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., also said an uptick in income suggested the Japanese economy would expand further. Unionized workers of GM Korea stage a rally against the US carmaker’s plan to close the plant at their plant in Gunsan, South Korea on Feb 14. General Motors said Tuesday it will close an underutilized factory in Gunsan,

South Korea, by the end of May as part of a restructuring of its operations. (AP) GUNSAN/SEOUL, Feb 14, (RTRS): General Motors’ workers at a South Korean plant staged a protest on Wednesday against its planned closure, calling the move by the US automaker a “death sentence”, and threatening a strike.

In the city of Gunsan, where the factory with 2,000 workers is, shuttered store fronts and empty streets near the plant are a stark reminder of the depressing impact on the rural town.

The factory had already been running at about 20 percent of capacity over the past three years even before the US carmaker announced the closure.

“Gunsan city worked really hard to rescue GM, buying GM cars produced from the factory. The whole town is now in panic,” Park Chung-hi, chairwoman of the Gunsan city council, told Reuters.

Park who also has a GM car said one out of five in Gunsan, including family members of workers at GM’s part suppliers, relies on the US carmaker’s operation there.

GM’s South Korean unit launched a voluntary redundancy scheme for its 16,000 workers in the Asian nation after announcing on Tuesday it will shutter the plant in Gunsan by May and decide within weeks on the fate of the remaining three plants in the country.

Unionised workers at the Gunsan plant wore red headbands saying “Solidarity, Fight” and held leaflets demanding the withdrawal of the closure plan. Some had shaved their heads.

“Let’s protect our right to live on our own,” Kim Jae-hong, the leader of the workers’ union at the Gunsan branch, said amid tears.

GM’s planned revamp of its lossmaking South Korea operations is the

latest in a series of steps by the automaker to put profitability and innovation ahead of sales and volume. Since 2015 GM has exited unprofitable markets including Europe, Australia, South Africa and Russia.

It is offering South Korean workers three times their annual base salary, money for college tuition and more than $9,000 towards a new car as part of a redundancy package.

A spokesman of GM Korea, the local unit, said the company would continue discussions with the union and seek their understanding over the closure plan.

But workers were far from placated. The union will establish a detailed plan in protest against the shutdown that may include a strike and holding of a sit-in rally at the headquarters of GM Korea, according to the union’s Gunsan branch.

“We can’t accept this. The company informed us about the closure plan, not asking for our opinion. It was already the end of the discussions,” Dang Sung-geun, a senior official at the union of GM Korea, told Reuters by telephone.

“This is like a death sentence notice before the Lunar New Year holidays.”