Prospects In the longer term, I have no doubt that the region will return to robust growth almost certainly not as rapid as has been experienced in the past two or three decades, but still the sorts of growth rates that the rest of the world envies.
Deposit interest rates are declining, but the extent of the decline is minimal, since rates already were close to 0 percent. For example, interest rates on deposits in ordinary accounts (the Japanese equivalent to checking accounts for retail customers) at mega-banks decreased from twohundredths of a percent to a thousandth of a percent.