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November 07, 2025
 

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INFLATION

Many workers at small companies continue to fall behind as wages fail to keep up with inflation.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 29, 2025
Smaller Japanese companies unlikely to meet wage-increase target for 2025
For this year’s spring negotiations, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation set hike targets of more than 6% for smaller firms.
People were more concerned about the direct and specific impact of the Bank of Japan's latest rate hike on their personal lives, according to an artificial intelligence-driven analysis of various platforms, including social media.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 29, 2025
Japan begins feeling the pain of BOJ rate hikes more concretely
As time goes on, the BOJ’s rate increases appear to be having a stronger impact on people’s everyday lives, shifting from more abstract concepts to more concrete effects.
Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda during a news conference at the central bank's headquarters in Tokyo on Oct. 31, 2014
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 29, 2025
BOJ policymakers divided over additional easing in Oct. 2014
The actions taken as a result of the meeting took market players by surprise, sending the yen lower against the dollar and Japanese stocks higher.
Despite Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda’s efforts to explain his thinking, many struggle to grasp the BOJ's position as businesses face high costs and weak demand while consumers deal with rising prices and stagnant wages.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 28, 2025
The Bank of Japan’s communication challenges
Despite limited developments that would justify a policy shift since December, Japan's central bank nevertheless went ahead to raise interest rates.
People line up to use an ATM in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Western financial sanctions have weighed on the Russian ruble, which has sunk from 34 to the dollar in 2013 to around 100 today.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2025
Putin’s war is fueling Russian stagflation
For a normal country, a budget deficit of 2% of GDP would be of no concern. But Russia is not a normal country.
Yoichi Takemura will oversee yen rates and foreign exchange trading for Barclays in Tokyo, bringing nearly two decades of experience in those operations.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 27, 2025
Barclays hires ex-Garda manager Yoichi Takemura as Japan bond market revives
The bank's Japanese investment banking arm posted a record ¥16.5 billion in net profit in 2023, driven by increased client orders to trade yen rate products.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda explains the central bank's decision on its interest rate hike during a news conference after a policy meeting on Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Jan 27, 2025
BOJ may revert to fuzzy communication after Fed-style rates clarity
The BOJ fumbled its communication in December, surprising investors, but then telegraphed Friday's increase so unambiguously that the rate hike was 90% priced in.
A farmer stands next to his flood-damaged rice field after Typhoon Shanshan passed through Yufu, Oita Prefecture, in August 2024.
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2025
Japan plans to sell rice from emergency stockpiles to cut prices
The government will discuss selling part of its strategic rice reserve next week, the agriculture minister said Friday.
Katsumi Shinagawa prepares to shred cabbage to serve with pork cutlet dishes at the restaurant Katsukichi in Tokyo on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 24, 2025
Climate change cooks up Japanese 'cabbage shock'
It is the latest pain point for shoppers and eateries in Japan already squeezed by inflation.
Service inflation accelerated a tad to 1.6%, while an index excluding energy costs and fresh food prices advanced 2.4%, unchanged from the pace in November.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 24, 2025
Inflation in Japan jumps to 3%, supporting the BOJ's rate-hike case
The solid inflation data support the case for the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates on Friday, a move widely anticipated by markets and economists.
Instead of the Bank of Japan's actions strengthening the yen as once hoped, recent steps have only caused further weakening.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 22, 2025
Ueda’s doctrine for the BOJ is finally emerging
Instead of the Bank of Japan's actions strengthening the yen as once hoped, recent steps have only caused further weakening.
Masakazu Tokura (second from left), head of Keidanren, holds talks with Rengo leader Tomoko Yoshino (second from right) in Tokyo on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 22, 2025
Japan business lobby cites positive price trend ahead of BOJ decision
Keidanren head Tokura’s comments create a positive backdrop for the BOJ as its board prepares to deliver its policy decision on Friday.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda is still signaling caution ahead of the central bank's January meeting.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 21, 2025
BOJ likely to raise rates this week in absence of immediate Trump tariffs
The possibility is "quite high" if markets remain calm following Trump's inauguration on Monday as the 47th president of the United States.
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington on Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Jan 19, 2025
Democrats search for economic policy lessons as Trump takes office
Scarred by the 2007-09 recession, the Biden administration bet big on the labor market. The bet worked but not exactly as they hoped.
Customers carry shopping bags outside a supermarket in Tokyo. A new survey has found that more people are feeling the pinch from higher prices compared with a year ago.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 18, 2025
Over 95% in Japan feel impact of higher prices: BOJ survey
The survey also showed that 85.7% of respondents think prices will rise over the next year, up from 85.6%.
Many of the economists noted the interest rate hike is likely unless Donald Trump jolts global financial markets, after he returns to the White House four days before the Bank of Japan’s policy decision.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 17, 2025
More than 70% of BOJ watchers expect a rate hike next week
BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda reinforced his deputy’s message this week that his board will consider a rate hike at the meeting, boosting the yen and expectations for action.
The influx of foreign tourists in Japan is pushing up hotel room prices, forcing some business travelers to stay at capsule hotels.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 15, 2025
Japan's tourism boom prices out local business travelers
The average price of a basic room at a business hotel in Tokyo has nearly doubled between 2019 and last year.
The number of corporate bankruptcies with liabilities of ¥10 million or more in Japan last year marked the third consecutive year of increases as rising prices due to the yen's weakening and labor shortages caused business failures in a wide range of industries.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 14, 2025
Japan business failures top 10,000 in 2024, worst in 11 years
The annual figure marked the third consecutive year of increases as rising prices due to the yen's weakening and labor shortages caused business failures.
The 40-year JGB yield rose as much as 3 basis points to 2.755%, the highest since 2007 when the bonds were sold for the first time.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 14, 2025
Japan’s 40-year yield rises to highest since debut in 2007
Japan’s 20-year yield also rose to its highest since May 2011 this morning after the nation’s markets reopened following a public holiday on Monday.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva speaks during a meeting in Washington on Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 11, 2025
IMF chief sees steady world growth in 2025, continuing disinflation
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the U.S. economy was doing "quite a bit better" than expected, although there was uncertainty around Donald Trump's trade policies.
The Toyota buyout is a major test for Japan’s reforms
Akio Toyoda, chairman of Toyota Motor, speaks during a media preview at the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo on Oct. 29. Minority investors are challenging the carmaker's bid to take affiliate Toyota Industries Corp. private.
From France to Mali, a deportee's struggle far from home
Moussa Sacko, a Malian deported from France — where he had lived since he was a young child — stands on a street in Bamako, Mali, in December. Compared with his home in France, Bamako feels like a different planet, Sacko said.
ChatGPT nickname and Trump tariffs nominated for Japan’s buzzword of 2025
Women hold toys depicting Myaku-Myaku, the official character for the 2025 Osaka Expo, during a media day ahead of the event's public opening day in Osaka in April.
SoftBank is said to have explored potential takeover of Marvell
SoftBank explored a potential takeover of U.S. chipmaker Marvell Technology earlier this year, in what would have been the semiconductor industry's largest-ever deal.
The second life of Japan's net cafes
Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
Across borders and screens, Tokyo film festival finds humanity in migration
“Mother Bhumi” takes place in a multiethnic rice-farming community where Chinese, Thai and Malay lineages intertwine.
Takaichi’s balancing act: Supporting Taiwan and stabilizing China ties
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi shakes hands with Lin Hsin-i, Taiwan’s presidential adviser, on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Saturday in this image posted to Takaichi's official X account.
From 1973 to 2025: A Japanese American skater’s long ride to recognition
Judi Oyama at Winchester Skatepark in San Jose, California, in January 1979. The Skateboarding Hall of Fame inductee and Guinness World Record holder still skates and hopes to inspire older women.
More Japanese universities pushing toward teaching in English
Waseda University in Tokyo
Young Indonesians in Japan find their political voice
Indonesian students at Hiroshima University hold posters of the 17+8 Demands, demanding transparency and action from their homeland’s government.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes
By Alex K.T. Martin

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