Japan: Consumer confidence inches up in September

Consumer sentiment increased from 43.3 in August to 43.4 in September. The print contrasted market expectations of a decline to 43.0. The consumer confidence index measures consumers’ expectations for the next six months on a scale of 0–100; a figure of 100 indicates that all respondents see their living standards improving.

Consumers were less pessimistic about their confidence in income growth as well as their willingness to buy durable goods. Job prospects were unchanged, while the overall livelihood category declined in September. Regarding prices, expectations of higher prices increased slightly in September, with 81.7% of respondents expecting prices to trend higher (up 0.1 percentage points from last month’s survey).

Japan Private Consumption Forecast

FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists expect private consumption to rise 0.6% in 2018, which is unchanged from last month’s forecast. In 2019, the panel sees private consumption growing 1.0%.