"The Japanese economy is in a race between the need to increase economic growth, which seems to be gradually taking hold, and the pressing urgency to control debt."
Greece, China, Puerto Rico. Is Japan the next hotspot on the financial wall of worry? Probably not. But the world’s third-largest economy faces substantial challenges, and the reform program of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, referred to as Abenomics, needs to accelerate.
Without a more forceful push to tackle public-sector debt, Japan’s strategy of stimulating stronger economic growth could stumble and deflation could once again bedevil what should be a key component of global economic growth. And the global economy needs a stronger Japan, considering that the recovery since the Great Recession has been fragile and uneven.