In the fourth quarter of 2019, the country's economy went down by 1.9 percent quarter-on-quarter. Two consecutive quarters of contraction are defined as a recession.
This is Japan's first recession since 2015.
On an annualised basis, the country's economy has shrunk by 2.2 percent in the given period. Private consumption, accounting for up to 60 percent of Japan's GDP, has decreased by 0.8 percent.
The quarterly exports have gone down by 6 percent, while the imports have slumped by 4.9 percent.
As the COVID-19 epidemic has unfolded, many countries have adopted severe restrictions to stop the virus from spreading, weakening their economies in the process.
