Japan is headed for a mild slowdown this year and continues to face threats to its economic outlook from high petrol and other commodity prices, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday, according to dpa. But the world's second-largest economy has shown little effect from a housing and financial market crisis that has sharply slowed growth in the United States. "Clearly the economy is headed for a slowdown this year," said Daniel Citrin, who headed the IMF's recent annual talks with Japan on its economic situation. Citrin said the IMF predicted growth "somewhat below" 1.5 per cent. The international lender forecast exactly 1.5-per-cent growth for Japan as part of a worldwide economic outlook released on July 19. Growth in 2007 stood at 2.1 per cent. The IMF said high commodity prices had led to a large terms-of- trade loss for the country and remained the greatest risk to its economic outlook. "Consumers and Japanese corporations are being squeezed by high fuel and other commodity prices," Citrin said.
