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Japan’s GDP for the fourth quarter of 2021 has been revised downwards, from annualized growth of + 5.4% resulting in the preliminary figure to an expansion of + 4.6%. The figure was significantly worse than the + 5.6% forecast by economists. On a quarterly basis, Japan’s economy grew by 1.1%, less than the + 1.4% expected. Private consumption, which accounts for more than half of Japan’s GDP, increased in the period between October and December by 2.4%, less than the + 2.7% reported in the preliminary reading. Japan’s GDP risks contracting in the first quarter of 2022, in the wake of the leap in Covid infections and due to the surge in energy prices, exacerbated by the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.