However, since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in the autumn of 2008, the yen appreciated rapidly and has recently been trading around its level in the early 2000s. This suggests that the portion of exports supported by the depreciation of the yen since the second half of the 2000s has been eliminated.
Based on these observations, the lesson that can be learned from the experience of the global financial crisis is not that Japan’s economy needs to make a full-fledged shift from being external demand-dependent to being domestic demand-driven, but that it is important that the global economy aims to achieve sustainable growth.