Japan factory output rises, firms expect recovery

TOKYO: Japan’s December factory output rose at the fastest pace in 1½ years and firms expect further gains, raising hopes that stabilising global demand and exports will help pull the economy from its slump.

The data should encourage Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, which is gambling that its “Abenomics” policy of big fiscal spending and open-ended monetary easing by the Bank of Japan can energise the economy after decades of stop-start growth and intermittent deflation.