The economy will return to a growth path in the July-September quarter after a sharp plunge in the April-June quarter that think tank analysts have linked to the consumption tax increase in April.
But the effects of the tax increase will linger, forcing the pace of recovery to a crawl, they predict.
Five selected think tanks all predict that the real growth rate for the April-June quarter will be poor, with the annualized rate falling into a range from minus 5.5 percent to minus 9.2 percent. For the July-September quarter, four of the five institutes foresee positive growth ranging from 1.5 to 5.7 percent. The remaining one predicts a rate of minus 0.4 percent.