Japan's continuing export-driven recovery helped economic growth accelerate in the first three months of 2010, official figures have shown.

日本官方数据显示，2010年第一季度，持续的出口拉动了日本经济的复苏。

Japanese customers have been reluctant to spend during deflation

Its economy grew by 1.2% between January and March from the previous quarter, the Cabinet Office said.

On an annualised（年度的） basis, growth was 4.9% - less than analysts¹ had predicted.

Finance Minister Naoto Kan warned that while Japan was enjoying a "steady recovery", its central bank needed to do more to curb² deflation（通货膨胀） .

Emerging Asian markets such as China have been driving Japan's economy and allowing what the International Monetary³ Fund (IMF) has called a "tentative（试验性的，暂定的） " recovery from recession.

New cars and high tech products have been most in demand from overseas consumers.

However, Takeshi Minami, economist⁴ at Norinchukin Research Institute, said Japanese growth was likely to slow between April and June.

"It will be difficult to expect exports to continue making this much of a contribution," he said.

Tax question

The importance of exports is emphasised by the weak state of domestic consumption.

Japan's continuing problem of deflation is bad for the economy as it tends to make consumers and businesses delay major purchases in the expectation that prices will fall further in the future.

The Bank of Japan has made targeting falling prices a priority, and the IMF thinks inflation will start to creep back late next year.

On Wednesday, the IMF urged Japan to start cutting its massive debt burden from next year.

It said Japan should start increasing consumption tax to tackle its debt, which at nearly 230% of GDP, is the highest of any industrialised nation.

Japan, like most developed economies, has poured money into the financial system to avert⁵（避免） the worst of the financial crisis, something the IMF said had stabilised markets and supported the recovery.

But aside from the economic woes（经济困境） of the past two years, increasing tax revenues has proved particularly difficult for the Japanese government, which has been battling to expand its economy for the past 20 years