Japan to lose its spot as world’s third-largest economy to Germany

Data released by the Japanese government on 15 February showed that Japan’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023 came to around 4,2 trillion USD.

The German government also announced that its nominal GDP for 2023, which took into account price changes, had witnessed an increase of 6.3% from the previous year to approximately 4.45 trillion USD. 

With these numbers, Japan was overtaken by Germany and has fallen to becoming the world’s fourth-largest economy. The United States remains the world’s largest economy, with China coming in second place. 

As comparisons of nominal GDP are in dollar terms, the weakening of the yen against the dollar and higher inflation in Germany were crucial factors leading to this drop.

Source: NHK