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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 16, 2020

Japan’s ¥73.6 trillion stimulus hinges on spending by older generation

People over the age of 65 make up 29% of the population and account for almost 40% of the consumer spending that is the biggest driver of Japan's economy.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 10, 2020

Virus pandemic pushes Japan’s shoppers to finally buy online

Now that the government is urging consumers and businesses to step up efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, shoppers may finally have no excuse but to embrace e-commerce and wean themselves from brick-and-mortar stores.
EDITORIALS
Nov 30, 2019

Banning (some) free plastic bags

Japan's effort to reduce plastic waste by forcing retailers to charge for shopping bags has too many exemptions.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / The Big Questions
Apr 7, 2019

ESG-centered values drive management, strategies

Dave Muenz hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where pollution from the local steel mills was once so severe that his steelworker father had to take multiple shirts to work because by lunchtime 'the color of his original shirt would be so bad.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 9, 2018

Effort to nudge Japan to go cashless with offsets to sales tax hike faces many hurdles

On Oct. 15, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed during an extraordinary Cabinet meeting that the government would raise the consumption tax from 8 to 10 percent next Oct. 1. The tax hike has already been postponed twice owing to jitters over how it might affect consumption. The last consumption tax increase,...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 11, 2014

China flouts efforts to protect world's wildlife

It would be nice to believe China's rhetoric that it cooperates with other countries in protecting wildlife. Yet, for two decades at least, Chinese consumer demand has been directly linked to the precipitous decline of wildlife populations around the globe.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 16, 2013

Browser makers consider limits to tracking users

It is often hard to tell which is the Web's priority: helping you learn about the world or helping the world — and especially advertisers — learn about you.
JAPAN
Oct 14, 1999

Auto firms pin sales hopes on show

Staff writer
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2023

The Japanese firms and megabanks funding rainforest destruction

Comprehensive datasets reveal thousands of investments and loans made by Japan’s top lenders and investment funds that are impacting rainforests around the world.
EDITORIALS
Feb 2, 2008

Bite of a consumer watchdog

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who in his latest policy speech called for creating a system in which citizens and consumers become "leading players," is eager to establish a Consumer Agency. A series of irregularities such as false labeling and data fabrication involving food, construction and paper manufacturing...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 16, 2006

Editor on a mission for consumers

Some people sarcastically refer to journalists in Japan as "sarariman reporters." That's because even though the Fourth Estate potentially has enormous power and influence, its members are often timid, risk-averse and happy to cozy up with the politicians, government agencies and corporations they cover....
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 14, 2020

Will Abe’s conservative nostalgia beat COVID-19?

The prime minister is counting on the nation's young people to do the right thing.
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2016

Kuroda sees limited impact of market turmoil on Japan's outlook

Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda plays down the prospect of market turmoil causing Japanese companies to pare back capital spending and wage increases, and expressed confidence in the underlying pace of inflation.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 12, 2021

Disney slumps as streaming cools, suggesting struggle ahead

The Disney+ service won't return to faster subscriber growth until the third and fourth quarters of the current fiscal year.
Japan Times
JAPAN / FUKUSHIMA FILE
May 17, 2015

Despite rumors, Fukushima food safety concerns ease inside prefecture

Some 78.1 percent of Fukushima residents bought local food goods in fiscal 2014 rather than produce harvested in other prefectures, up about 10 percentage points from the year before, a survey conducted by the prefectural consumers' group association shows.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 25, 2015

Otsuka Kagu familial feud nears climax

A battle between the founder of Otsuka Kagu Ltd. and its current president, who also happen to be father and daughter, is expected to turn into a proxy fight at the company's annual shareholders' meeting scheduled for Friday, with the result deciding the fate of the struggling furniture giant.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Feb 24, 2015

Sympathy for the snob: Real DJs play vinyl

Up a backstreet in Shibuya's Udagawacho neighborhood, tucked in behind the Milky Way, Chelsea Hotel and Star Lounge live-music venues — an area tight with record stores — I'm on my way to a party crammed with style-conscious young folk in sweaters and berets, DJing against the backdrop of Roman Polanski's...
EDITORIALS
Jul 3, 2013

Business sentiment mixed

Japan's quarterly 'tankan' survey shows mixed business sentiments. Small and medium-size firms so far don't seem to have benefited much from 'Abenomics.
EDITORIALS
May 24, 2011

Japan's GDP takes a hit

The Cabinet Office on May 19 said that Japan's gross domestic product in real terms in the January-March period declined 0.9 percent from the October-December period in 2010 or an annualized 3.7 percent, marking negative growth in two consecutive quarters. GDP in nominal terms, which reflects changes...
EDITORIALS
Sep 11, 2004

Impact of higher oil prices

Oil prices have been turning upward, slowly but steadily, throughout the world. So far, the blow to the economy seems to have been limited. However, oil supplies are becoming increasingly unstable. With oil exports from Iraq partially suspended, prices have climbed to the $50-per-barrel level. This situation...
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2002

Cloud of population decline may have silver lining

"Rabbit hutch" is a stereotypical term coined years ago by outsiders referring the cramped dwellings of crowded, urban Japan.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2002

Snow Brand appoints consumer guru to board

OSAKA -- Snow Brand Milk Products Co. on Tuesday said it has appointed Nobuko Hiwasa, former chief of a leading consumer group, as an outside director in charge of food safety.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 6, 2022

Biden feud with Big Oil ratchets up just as world needs more U.S. oil

The tensions come at a fraught moment for both the country and the rest of the world.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
May 2, 2022

Hope fizzles out for Japan's 'revenge spending' splurge as inflation looms

Facing the prospect of struggling with rising prices, Japan's famously thrifty consumers are tightening their belts even as they sit on the remains of an estimated u00a550 trillion in savings.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 14, 2020

BP says the era of oil-demand growth is over

Oil consumption may never return to levels seen before the coronavirus crisis took hold, the company said in a report on Monday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Markets
May 13, 2020

Traders are rewriting strategies for post-epidemic Asia stocks

As it becomes increasingly clear that the coronavirus pandemic will have social and economic effects that outlast personnel lockdowns, market participants are re-drawing their long-term trading strategies.
BUSINESS
Mar 20, 2010

Global retailers may 'welcome' shift to thrift: McKinsey

Consumers' newfound propensity to shop for discounts and shun luxury goods marks a sea change that may boost foreign retailers in Japan, according to McKinsey & Co.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 2, 2007

Kanji, kana trip search engines

Like the rest of the world, people in Japan rely on search engines every day to tap the ocean of information that is the World Wide Web.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 29, 2022

Top AI guru is helping retool popular Japanese snacks for Ezaki Glico

Junichi Hasegawa's primary job at the firm is to help find the perfect blend of taste and nutrition through massive data harvesting and machine learning.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan