Although there remains considerable uncertainty about the outlook for global financial markets, I hope that a series of measures taken by governments and central banks will contribute to stabilization of the markets, leading to recovery in global economic growth. The outlook for economic activity and the risk factors I would now like to turn to the outlook for the Japanese economy.
Our main scenario is that economic activity will likely remain sluggish for the time being against the backdrop of high energy and materials prices and weaker growth in exports due to a slowdown in overseas economies. The question is whether or not the Japanese economy will experience a deep adjustment phase. We believe that the possibility of this occurring is rather small.