Key challenges to sustaining Japan's improved economic performance.

Japan has overcome many of the structural problems that hindered growth during the decade following the collapse of the asset price bubble in the early 1990s, helping it to achieve a sustained expansion led by domestic demand. Although robust economic growth is projected to continue through 2007, Japan must address a number of problems to sustain the expansion over the medium term. This chapter identifies five key challenges: i) ensuring a definitive end to deflation under a new monetary policy framework; ii) achieving fiscal consolidation in the context of high public debt and rapid population ageing; iii) addressing rising income inequality and poverty while reducing government spending; iv) boosting productivity growth by upgrading the innovation system, focusing on the R&D framework, product market competition and the education system; and v) strengthening the integration of Japan in the world economy to benefit more fully from globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]