Under these circumstances, in the latest forecasts released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last month, the global economic growth rate for 2019 is projected to be 3.3 percent, which was further revised somewhat downward from the previous forecasts released in January. Thus, the growth rate for this year is likely to fall slightly below the long-term average since 1980 of 3.5 percent.
1  Current Situation of Japan's Economic Activity With the global economy decelerating, Japan's exports and production have shown some weakness recently (Chart 2). Exports have decreased since the turn of the year, mainly in terms of capital goods and IT-related goods to China, and this has led to the weakness in production and deterioration in business sentiment in the manufacturing sector.