That said, longer-run trends in the growth of productivity are very difficult to predict. During the first half of the decade, productivity in the nonfarm business sector increased at an unusually high average annual rate of about 3 percent. However, according to current estimates, productivity growth slowed in the second quarter of this year and came to a halt in the third quarter.
Although there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the outlook, Japan’s economy is expected to return to a moderate recovery path in the first half of fiscal 2012 as the pace of recovery in overseas economies picks up, led by emerging and commodity-exporting economies, and as reconstructionrelated demand after the earthquake gradually strengthens.