Japan’s investment industries stopped in their tracks. Hitachi, the giant producer of capital goods and electronics, was worst hit, facing a record loss for a Japanese industrial company of $7.87 billion.56 Consumer electronics icon Sony announced a loss of $2.6 billion. Toshiba expected to lose $2.8 billion, Panasonic $3.8 billion.57 All in all, in January 2009 Japan’s economy contracted at a rate of 20 percent per annum and exports by 50 percent year on year.
