Ananova:

Japan - the world's second biggest economy - has become another victim of the global financial crisis.

For the first time in seven years, the Asian powerhouse slipped into recession emphasising the extent of the economic downturn in this volatile region.

Japan's GDP- the value of the nation's goods and services- shrank at an annual pace of 0.4% in the July -September quarter, joining the 15 nations of the Euro-zone in recession.

The Organisation of Economic Development and Cooperation Development -the so called club of rich nations - has said it expects the United States to slide into recession when its figures are released in January.

The Japanese market mostly shrugged off news of the recession.

Some analysts believe the bad news had already been priced into a market that has seen its growth halved in the last 12 months.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average finished up 60.19 points, or 0.7%, at 8,522.58.

Among carmakers, Toyota dipped 0.3%, Mitsubishi Financial Group fell 1.7% while Honda rose 1.7%.

"It wasn't a surprise and people are expecting poor figures for the next quarter as well, but that's largely factored in already," Daiwa SB Investment portfolio manager Koichi Ogawa said.

And with many companies having already announced significant downgrades to earnings, the Japanese market took the second straight quarter of economic downturns in its stride.

News of Japan's recession came hours after a weekend meeting of world leaders in Washington to discuss reforms of the world's financial structure.

The highly-hyped gathering provided a display of unity between rich and emerging nations but little else.

Long-awaited concrete measures to deal with the crisis were postponed until their meeting in April.

"Basically it was nice that a lot of important people gathered together and set a direction but nothing concrete emerged," said Ogawa.