A satisfactory assessment of the current state of the economy is therefore not only an important element with which to judge the forecasts but also a necessary ingredient of a forecasting exercise, providing the best guess for the “starting condition”. ii)  Tools like € are designed to perform this task by extracting, through formal quantitative methods, the information contained in a large dataset.
In view of the progress in the horizontal division of labor and expansion of trade and capital transactions between Japan and other Asian countries, this matter requires due attention. If we take a look at Japan’s trade with Asian countries, Japan’s exports to Thailand have decreased significantly. However, there have not been any notable declines in exports to other neighboring countries.