Japan is being overtaken on machinery industry

Japan is being overtaken on machinery industry

China’s economy is now bigger than Japan’s, but less noticed is the fact that Asia’s so-called newly industrialised economies (NIEs) are, one by one, becoming richer than Japan. Most economists reckon that the best way to compare living standards is to take GDP per person measured at purchasing-power parity (PPP), which adjusts for differences in the cost of living in each country. On this gauge, Japan was overtaken by Singapore in 1993, by Hong Kong in 1997 and by Taiwan in 2010. But the most humbling re-ranking will be when South Korea becomes richer than Japan. The latest forecasts from the IMF suggest that this could happen within five years (see chart). That would be a remarkable turnabout. In 1980 South Korea’s GDP per person was barely a quarter the level of Japan’s.
For years, Japan was Asia’s richest and most powerful economy. It was the first Asian economy to industrialise, and the emerging Asian tigers—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and later China—merely followed in its tracks. Now, however, Japan is steadily being overtaken.
Calculated at market exchange rates, Japan’s per-head income is still higher than all the NIEs except Singapore. Yet Japan’s high prices, especially for housing and food, bring down the country’s true standard of living. PPPs are tricky to calculate and economists come up with different numbers, so the IMF’s figures are contentious. Some other yardsticks, such as car-ownership rates, still suggest that Japan has a comfortable lead over South Korea. But the trend is clear: the tigers are outpacing their teacher.
CHINA'S working-age population fell last year as a proportion of the total, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics last week. Chinese aged 15-64 represented 74.4% of the population in 2011, compared with 74.5% the year before. The statistic prompted one or two stories speculating about the end of cheap China.
China's dependency ratio (the number of Chinese not of working age as a percentage of those who are) is still low, compared with its past or its peers.

Seen from the statistics, we know that China is in rapid developing and trying to catch up with such developed countries as Japan. However, the national economic is mainly depends on machinery and construction industry, in view of that, some mining machine such as , and will anyway plays an important part in China national economy.