German banks have further improved their resilience by raising new equity and retaining earnings. The tier 1 capital ratio of the German banking system as a whole rose by 0.6 percentage points between June 2014 and June 2015, and currently stands at 15.6 %. Thus, the long-term trend towards strengthening their equity base progressed further in 2015.
As mentioned earlier, with the U.S. economy continuing to recover moderately and policy effects gradually surfacing in the Chinese economy, the global economy is likely to get out of a deceleration phase, but the exit has been deferred. II. Current state and challenges of Japan’s economy  Let me move on to Japan’s economy.