Japan's economy expanded for 71 consecutive months through October 2018, a government panel concluded Thursday, meaning that the country fell two months short of a record-long post-war growth period as suggested by the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The panel of economists and experts for the Cabinet Office, which retrospectively determines the length of an economic boom, said the country's economic expansion that began in December 2012 ended in October 2018, a time when exports were dampened by an escalating U.S.-China tariff war.
In January last year, the Japanese government said the domestic economy was likely in the midst of its longest expansion phase since the end of World War II. But the panel said it did not break the record 73 months of growth achieved between 2002 and 2008.