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The story
The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, released on October 12, projected that Japan’s nominal GDP will be overtaken by both India and the UK in 2027, dropping Japan to 6th place globally. The previous forecast, from April, had the UK overtaking Japan in 2029, so this timeline has been moved up. On 5ch’s Breaking News+ thread, posters pointed to Japan’s reliance on car exports and tourism — both propped up by the weak yen — as a factor in the ranking slide, while others noted that Japan has already been overtaken by South Korea in per-capita GDP, sparking a split in opinion over how to judge the true strength of Japan’s economy.
Japan’s GDP Projected to Fall to ‘World’s 6th Largest’ as India and UK Overtake It Next Year… Revealed in IMF ‘World Economic Outlook’ : Yomiuri Shimbun
[Washington — Yukinobu Sakamoto, Bangkok — Seiji Tabata] Japan’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) is now projected to fall to 6th place worldwide in 2027, overtaken by both India and the United Kingdom. This was revealed in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) latest World Economic Outlook, published on the 12th. In the previous forecast from April, the UK was expected to overtake Japan in 2029, but that timeline now appears to have moved up.
Trends in nominal GDP by country
Source: yomiuri.co.jp / Read the original article
What people said
This is seriously past saving
Yeah, those two are huge
Though who knows how much longer the auto industry can carry it either
And Japan isn't even properly cashing in on inbound tourism
Real tourism-based countries charge steep entry taxes
Plus whatever industries feed off Tokyo's over-concentration
Even Toyota's done for at this point
Some countries fudge their numbers anyway, so it's not that reliable
Even if you fudge the numbers, GDP gets cross-checked against trade volume and shipping data, so you can't fake it by much
Wait, are you talking about Japan's real estate market, or its multi-tiered subcontracting structure?
Having a big number doesn't guarantee you're rich, but having a small one definitely means you're poor lol
We used to mock them for their bridges collapsing, but these days Korea's infrastructure is actually more impressive
Aging countries just keep losing ground on per-capita GDP, that's how it goes
It's because too much money gets handed out to the regions, genius
That's one of the causes of the decline too
It's over-concentrated BECAUSE the country's declining, genius
The falling birthrate and aging population are the public's own fault
That's because the LDP never actually tackled the birthrate problem
Per-capita GDP
South Korea: $49,280
Taiwan: $47,410
Japan: $36,620
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/OEMDC/JPN/KOR/TWN
Never imagined there'd be a day we'd be losing to Korea by this much
All thanks to the LDP's lousy governance
How did it get this bad…
If it drops below $30,000 Japan won't even count as a developed country anymore
A bit more yen weakness and it'll easily cross that line
They kept pushing this ridiculous 'tourism nation' thing, but it's going to flip into foreigners saying 'wow, so cheap lol' about Japan — the exact thing Japanese tourists used to say about Southeast Asia back in the bubble era
People are already saying it, actually
Still saying that?
People kept saying 'Korea's going to collapse, at least we're better than Korea' for 30 years straight, and then got overtaken anyway
Korea treats the birthrate crisis with far more urgency than Japan does, tries all kinds of policies,
and is actually seeing improvement.
Japan, meanwhile, keeps pushing childcare policies that haven't produced results,
instead of just helping young people get married in the first place
Nobody said Japan is great
Just saying that the way Japan is finished because of aging, Korea will eventually be finished too
Re: #300
Look… Korea already overtook Japan in per-capita GDP, wages, AND purchasing power years ago, you know that right?
And Japan's getting crushed on recent growth rates too, so that gap just keeps widening
And it's only going to keep widening from here
Just accept reality already
How long are you going to keep thinking Japan is equal to or beating Korea
Japan is losing completely, on every single metric
Korea's just pumping its numbers up with high-risk debt — it's the same story as the current mess in the KOSPI (Korea's stock index)
Once the dankai junior generation (the massive cohort born to Japan's baby boomers)
all retire at once,
Japan is truly finished
The real hell is still ahead
There are definitely some dead-weight prefectures out there.
Tokyo is the biggest dead weight of all
It sucks young people out of the regions, puts them to work in domestic service industries instead of export-oriented manufacturing,
crams them into tiny apartments, and drives the birthrate down in the process
Breaking it down by prefecture is honestly pointless
The whole system is set up so that consumption and income concentrate in Tokyo
so by that logic, everywhere outside Tokyo counts as 'dead weight'
The forecast has Indonesia overtaking Japan by 2050, but at this rate it might happen as early as the early 2040s lol
Shocked by what Japan looks like 50 years from now… today's world No. 4 Japan's GDP hits an 'unthinkable rank' by 2075
https://gentosha-go.com/articles/-/58593?page=2
https://ggo.ismcdn.jp/mwimgs/f/9/540/img_f90ae1ae0088c716d5d901cff26dee1275548.jpg
Wasn't that prediction already out there to begin with?
If it only ends up being that mild, that's actually surprising
Other countries have already fallen apart
In the long run, I think Japan's the one that survives
Re: #463
Feels like it's just coasting on and eating through assets built up in the past
And maintaining that infrastructure is becoming harder and harder
Background and Debate Points on This Topic
Rankings based on dollar-converted nominal GDP are heavily shaped by exchange rates, not just the underlying size of each economy. In the thread, it wasn’t widely acknowledged that Japan’s ranking drop reflects not only a shrinking real economy but also significant erosion in value from the weak yen. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook is revised twice a year, in April and October, and the core of this report is that the timeline for the UK overtaking Japan has moved up from the previously forecast 2029 to 2027. In the thread, voices expressing alarm — citing Japan’s heavy reliance on the auto and tourism industries and the fact that it has already been overtaken by South Korea in per-capita GDP — clashed with those arguing that GDP size alone doesn’t measure a nation’s prosperity. However, the question of how much the exchange-rate effect should be discounted when reading into the rankings wasn’t discussed much.
*This article is composed as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread ‘Japan’s GDP Projected to Fall to ‘World’s 6th Largest’ as India and UK Overtake It Next Year… IMF.’
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