Analysts currently say that Japan looks set to enter a period of recession.
Their predictions are backed up by the latest quarterly figures that show that the world's second largest economy is continuing its downward trend. However, Japan's Economic Planning Agency brushes aside these gloomy forecasts. The year 2000, it says, will bring economic recovery. In the boom years of the 1980s, Japan's trade and industry was rolling in money. There were heaps of money to borrow and most of it was spent on investment.