Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said the government was ready to deploy fiscal stimulus steps flexibly if the economy needed fresh support to fend off risks from slumping global demand and the U.S.-China trade war.

But he said Japan’s economy remained on course for a moderate recovery thanks to robust domestic demand, signaling that no immediate, additional measures were necessary to ease the pain from a sales tax hike that kicked off in October.

“Given uncertainty over the global economy, exports are falling and weighing on manufacturers’ output. But the weakness has yet to spread to non-manufacturers or domestic demand,” Aso told.

“If we need to compile some form of an economic stimulus package, we are ready to take various types of fiscal measures flexibly,” he said.