Japan’s gross domestic product increased by 1 percent in annualized terms in the three months<br />through December, the government’s Cabinet Office said in a preliminary estimate.<br />Output in the country, which has the world’s third-largest economy<br />but has struggled to shake off deflation, expanded in each quarter last year, the longest uninterrupted period of growth in three years.<br />In the last three months of the year, exports surged 11 percent in annualized terms, according to Cabinet Office data.<br />TOKYO — Japan extended its yearlong streak of modest economic growth in the last three months of 2016, data showed on Monday.<br />A version of this article appears in print on February 13, 2017, on Page B2 of the New<br />York edition with the headline: Small Victory for Japan: A 4th Quarter of Growth.<br />It has become a familiar pattern: Global demand for Japanese cars, chemicals<br />and other products keeps factories humming, even as domestic spending sputters.<br />Japan, whose growth is held back by a shrinking population, had not increased its output for four straight quarters since 2012-13.<br />Investment by businesses was up 3.8 percent, although much of that, too, is linked to exports as companies gear up factories to sell things abroad.<br />In Japan, Another Quarter of Modest Growth Represents a Victory -<br />By JONATHAN SOBLEFEB.
