The nation's retail sales growth stalled, underscoring weakness in private consumption and increasing the likelihood that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will delay a sales-tax increase planned for next year.
Sales were unchanged in April from the previous month, a government report showed Monday. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 0.6 percent decline. From a year earlier, sales fell 0.8 percent, compared with a decline of 1.2 percent forecast in the survey.
Abe told fellow leaders a Group of Seven summit last week in Japan that there is a significant risk of the world economy falling into a crisis on the scale of the 2008 financial crisis if the right policy measures are not taken. That is fueling speculation that Abe will soon announce a delay in the consumption levy hike to help support spending. A sales tax increase led to a recession in 2014.