Medium- to long-term agenda for Japan’s economy  Downtrend in economic growth rate Japan’s economy achieved a high real growth rate of an average of about 10 percent during the high-growth period. While the growth rate subsequently declined, a relatively high average growth rate was maintained at about 5 percent in the 1970s and 4–5 percent in the 1980s.
It fell substantially to around 1.5 percent in the 1990s and further to less than 1 percent in the 2000s (Chart 2). Such decline in the economic growth rate is partly attributable to the ending of Japan’s process of catching up with advanced economies, which had continued since the high-growth era, and a decrease in the working-age population associated with progress in aging.