Japan is the third largest economy after the United States and China. It has a GDP of $4.9 trillion, which is slightly lower than the GDP of the United Kingdom and France, which have a combined GDP of $5.1 trillion.

For decades, Japan has used its expertise in manufacturing and its good relations with the United States and European countries to grow its economies. Japan is home to some of the biggest companies in the world like Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Mitsui among others.

In the morning today, the country's cabinet office released the first quarter GDP numbers that missed the analysts' forecasts. In the first quarter, the country's GDP contracted by negative 0.2% and at an annualized rate of negative 0.6%. This growth was lower than what analysts had expected. They had expected the economy to grow by 0.4% and at an annual rate of 0.0%. In 2017 Q4, the economy had expanded by 0.1% and at an annual rate of 0.6%.

These numbers ended a 28-year winning streak for the Japanese economy. It ended the eighth quarter of consistent growth. The contraction in the country's GDP were mostly because of reduced consumption and reduced private sector investments. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Price Index which measures the change in the price of all goods and services included in GDP contracted by negative 0.2% against the expected 0.3% growth. In addition, the GDP private consumption remained stagnant after seeing a 0.2% growth in the fourth quarter. In the quarter, the GDP Capital Expenditure, which is the total value of the finished goods and services produced in the economy, contracted by negative 0.1% against the expected0.4% growth.

These numbers were a blow to Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe who won a second term in 2017. His policies, commonly known as Abenomics have helped the country grow its economy and become more competitive. The Bank of Japan, on the other hand, has brought the base lending rates to negative and continued with a quantitative easing program.