The economy is deteriorating and may be slipping into recession due to sluggish personal consumption and business investment, the government said Thursday, downgrading its assessment for the fifth straight month.
"The possibility the economy has entered a recession phase is substantially high," a Cabinet Office economist said in a briefing on the closely watched June economic report.
The Cabinet Office also dropped the phrase "moving toward a self-sustained recovery" from the report's overall assessment for the first time since March 2000, while saying the economy "is deteriorating," a step back from last month's report, which described it as "further weakening."