"Abenomics" likely to plunge Japan into "black hole"

As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Wednesday decided to further delay a sales tax hike, "Abenomics" has been labeled a failure. World financial experts believe that the palliative and ineffective "Abenomics" will likely plunge Japan's economy into a "black hole."

Abe announced on Wednesday a further postponement of Japan's second round of consumption tax hike to October 2019 from April 2017, explaining that the move was to avoid a further downturn of Japan's domestic consumption.

In April 2014, the Abe government raised the consumption tax from five percent to eight percent in a bid to curb government debt. The second round of tax hike was originally scheduled for October 2015, but it was postponed to April 2017 due to Japan's economic slowdown after the first-round tax hike.

Just two months ago, Abe said he firmly stood by the second-round tax hike unless Japan suffered a serious natural or economic disaster. The latest tax hike delay indicates he broke his word.

Bloomberg News commented that Abe's decision to delay the tax hike was a big policy U-turn, and this decision would trigger doubts over the Japanese government's ability to control its debt.

The Japanese government's debt ratio was less than 90 percent in 1991, but climbed up to 236 percent when Abe came to power. According to estimates by institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Japanese government's debt ratio currently is likely to be 250 percent.

Credit rating agency Fitch has noted that Abe's decision to delay the tax hike would "undermine the credibility" of Japan's commitment to paying down one of the world's biggest national debts.

The Wall Street Journal said that Abe vowed to bring Japan's economy back to the track of sound growth and win the war against deflation when he took office, but the further delay of the tax hike prompted questions about the Abe government's ability to keep its promise.

Investors no longer believe that "Abenomics" will succeed, the leading U.S. financial newspaper said.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report released on Wednesday that overreliance on monetary policies to push economic growth by developed economies, including Japan, has proved to be less successful in the long term.

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew recently said at an event run by the Christian Science Monitor that Japan faced deep economic challenges and the Japanese government had failed to properly use those policy tools and overly relied on monetary policies.

"Abenomics," with its super-easy monetary policy and fiscal, tax and structural reforms as its pillars, aims to bail Japan out of its long-term deflation.

To this end, Japan's central bank set a target of two percent inflation and frequently launched "big measures" to stimulate economic growth, but this target has not been achieved yet due to structural problems.

According to the Japan Times, policies stemming from "Abemonics" are merely palliative, and the money-printing plan of Japan's central bank will only benefit hedge funds, not Japanese families.

Meanwhile, these policies also make the establishment of Japan's "Silicon Valley" and the surge of startups by Japanese enterprises vanish like soap bubbles.

Olivier Blanchard, a former chief economist at the IMF, said that the Bank of Japan would come under mounting political pressure and Japan's public debt will see a spiral which carries a high risk.

(APD)