Tokyo, May 24 :

Japan has pulled out of the economic doldrums and will likely achieve a healthy 2.75 per cent growth this year, a senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said today.

Daniel Citrin, deputy director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, also said the world’s second largest economy has exited ‘a period of deflation,’ a downward spiraling of prices that threatens the economy by bringing down wages and profits.

The IMF’s latest forecast for Japan’s at 2.75 per cent growth this year is slightly lower than the 2.8 per cent growth it gave in its report in April. Japan is projected to grow by two per cent next year, slightly below the earlier projection for 2.1 per cent expansion, according to the IMF. But the slightly lower forecast ‘doesn’t change the picture of strong economic growth’ in Japan. “Generally speaking, the growth picture is robust,” he told reporters after an annual consultation with Japanese officials on economic policy. Japan’s economy grew at an annual pace of 1.9 per cent in the first quarter, according to preliminary data by the Japanese government.

Japan has been unique among industrialised nations in being plagued with deflation for several years. Since the early 1990s, the economy has been stuck in stagnation, but recent signs show it’s recovering.