On February 21, preliminary statistics released by the Ministry of Finance of Japan showed that in January 2024, Japan's **deficit was 1,758.3 billion yen (about 84 billion yuan). 
In 2023, Japan lost out to Germany in terms of nominal GDP, and after 13 years, Japan is once again back to the world's fourth-largest economy after the United States, China, and Germany. Everyone knows that the Japanese economy is not doing well, and no one thought that the Japanese economy would have such a bleak moment. 
Japan has maintained a ** deficit for 3 consecutive years, and 2024 can be described as a bad start, recording a deficit of 1,758.3 billion yen in the first month, if there is not much improvement this year, the ** deficit may further expand, and then it will not be surpassed by Germany in terms of GDP, but by India, which ranks 5th.
In January 2024, Japan will reappear in a huge ** deficit, in fact, the problem is still in Japan itself, if the Noto Peninsula ** that happened in early January ** was an accident, then because of the Noto Peninsula ** caused the **chain to be unable to recover for a long time, this can definitely be called a man-made disaster. Of course, the most important thing is that Japan's pillar industries had major problems in January.
Japan's "spirit of craftsmanship" can be said to have reached a climax in recent times, Japan's Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu Industrial Co., Ltd. has been ** data fraud for more than 30 years, combined with other Japanese auto giants before the fraud was caught, and now some of Japan's Guonuo car manufacturers have directly stopped production, and are engaged in internal rectification.
The Japanese auto industry has been caught up by the Chinese auto industry, on the whole, this is just a little bit of fierce competition, the problem is that the Japanese auto industry itself is not up to the mark, which is the gods can not be saved. Originally, Japan relied on the export of automobiles, and could earn a lot of money from foreign trade every month, but now that the automobile factories have stopped production, the export will naturally earn less foreign exchange. 
In horizontal comparison, the U.S. deficit in January was $68.3 billion, and South Korea's deficit in January was 45$200 million, Australia's ** deficit in January was 29A$3.7 billion, Vietnam's ** deficit is 35US$300 million, New Zealand's ** deficit is S$3.2 billion. However, there are two countries that are particularly special: China and Germany. 
In the past January, the "European engine" of Germany's surplus was 14.3 billion euros, and the "world engine" China's surplus was 135.8 billion yuan. According to the data, the deepening of economic exchanges between China and Germany has an impact on the world economy that cannot be underestimated. There are two main reasons for Japan's long-term deficit. 
The first is that Japan is a country that is extremely dependent on foreign resources, and in recent years, commodities such as energy ores have led to high inflation in Japan. The second is Japan's representative pillar industries, whether it is the automobile industry or the semiconductor industry, which have a lot of competition with China, and Japan's advantages in many fields are gradually showing a downward trend. 
Japan is one of the few developed countries in Asia, but judging from the current situation, Japan is not only going downhill, but also the speed of the decline is still accelerating.