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April 07, 2025
 

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JAPANESE ECONOMY

A monitor in Tokyo shows the Nikkei stock average closing at its best year-end level ever, topping the previous high marked in 1989.
BUSINESS / Markets
Dec 30, 2024
Japan's Nikkei ends 2024 with nearly 20% rise
At 39,894.54, the benchmark index finished at its best year-end level ever, topping the previous high from the end of 1989 at the height of the country's bubble economy.
An advertisement in Tokyo's Kabukicho, Japan's largest red-light district. The country is home to a thriving adult entertainment industry and has recently seen a boom in sex tourism fueled by the weak yen and availability of red-light services.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 30, 2024
From geisha to oshikatsu, toxic tropes fuel sex industry
It isn't only the foreign gaze that produces stereotypes of Japanese women as submissive and promiscuous. Local laws and cultural norms play just as important a role.
Cabinet ministers at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Friday
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 27, 2024
Japan's Cabinet approves ¥115.5 trillion budget
The proposal exceeded ¥110 trillion for the third consecutive year in order to increase spending on defense and social welfare costs.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda during a news conference at the central bank's headquarters in Tokyo following a BOJ policy meeting on Dec. 19
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 27, 2024
Some BOJ policymakers called for rate hike soon, December summary shows
The Bank of Japan held interest rates steady at 0.25% at this month's meeting.
Inflation in Tokyo accelerated for a second month in December, as the government temporarily phased out utility subsidies, a result that will likely support expectations of an interest rate hike next year.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 27, 2024
Inflation in Tokyo accelerates, keeping rate hike prospects intact
The Tokyo core consumer price index, which excludes volatile fresh food costs, rose 2.4% in December from a year earlier.
According to Teikoku Databank, January price markups will center on bread products.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 26, 2024
Prices of 1,380 food items set to rise in Japan in January
According to a private research firm, January markups will center on bread products.
The Japanese economy is expected to grow 1.2% in fiscal 2025 in price-adjusted real terms, according to a government forecast.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 26, 2024
Japan's government expects 1.2% economic growth for fiscal 2025
The government maintained its view that personal consumption will be solid thanks to stable inflation and the effects of its economic package.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks at the meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy on Thursday at the Prime Minister's Office.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 26, 2024
Japan wage growth projected to outpace inflation in fiscal 2025
In fiscal 2025, nominal wages are projected to increase 2.8% from the previous year, while the overall consumer price index is forecast to rise 2.0%.
A Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) Type 10 main battle tank fires ammunition during a live fire exercise at the JGSDF's training grounds in the East Fuji Maneuver Area in Gotemba, Shizuoka Prefecture, in May.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 26, 2024
Japan set to approve record budget, spending more on defense and regions
While the government will have to lean heavily on debt issuance, record tax receipts will enable the cutting back of fresh bond issuance by almost a fifth.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda appears to want to keep his options open by noting the need to keep rates low to support the economy while flagging the risk of maintaining them at low levels for too long.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 25, 2024
Ueda avoids giving clear hint on chances of January rate hike
The Bank of Japan governor is sticking to his view that the central bank needs to keep monitoring risks for the economy.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (second from the left) making a statement at a meeting at the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 24, 2024
Japan eyes regional revitalization and economic growth
A basic concept for the promotion of regional revitalization was drawn up to promote economic growth and address the issue of overcrowding in Tokyo.
"In order to secure quality talent, we have to raise wages above inflation," Daiwa Securities CEO Akihiko Ogino has said.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 24, 2024
Daiwa aims to raise wages at least 5% next year amid competition for talent
Daiwa is discussing a pay raise of at least 5% for the financial year beginning in April 2025, after hikes of 5%, 4% and 7% in the three years prior.
Small businesses in Ino, a town in Kochi Prefecture known for its paper industry, show how a labor shortage is a growing threat to smaller companies that provide seven out of every 10 jobs in Japan.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 24, 2024
Small businesses with low wages struggle to tackle labor shortages
A worker shortage is threatening firms that are otherwise robust, including those that have invested in automation and creative hiring.
Minutes from the Bank of Japan's October policy meeting highlight how overseas economic risks, particularly those surrounding the new U.S. administration's policies, will be key to how soon the BOJ will hike rates.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 24, 2024
BOJ debated need for caution in raising rates, meeting minutes show
Contrary to its concern over external risks, the BOJ board was mostly optimistic on domestic economic conditions.
BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda said in July that the central bank’s holdings would decrease by 7% to 8% in about two years’ time, but they are set to stay at higher-than-desirable levels in the long-term.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 23, 2024
Japan's bond supply set to reach decade high as BOJ bond purchases slow
The BOJ’s plan to almost halve bond purchases comes as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba plans additional spending in an extra budget.
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo. Strategists are now feeling less optimistic on the yen’s outlook after Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda opened up the possibility of waiting longer for the next rate hike.
BUSINESS / Markets
Dec 23, 2024
Yen bulls retreat as Fed and BOJ dim hopes of quick narrowing of rate gap
Wide gaps in interest rates could bring back the yen carry trade, in which investors borrow in Japan and deploy the funds in higher-yielding markets.
Lawyers estimate that personal bankruptcies in Japan are on track to reach the highest since 2012 this year.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Dec 22, 2024
Bankruptcies and suicides rise as Japanese struggle with mounting debt
Personal debt is overwhelming an increasing number of Japanese as higher interest rates and the rising cost of living bite.
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo on Thursday
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Dec 21, 2024
Economists see BOJ's policy review as insufficient
The massive easing policy has caused adverse effects, such as a loosening of fiscal discipline, economists said.
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2024
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The poll found that people worry most about their own health, plans for life after retirement, and the outlook for future income and assets.
A pedestrian crossing in Tokyo's Ginza district. In an economic report released Friday, the government cut its assessment on corporate profits for the first time since March 2023.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 20, 2024
Japan says overall economy recovering, but cuts view on corporate profits
Among key economic areas, the government cut its assessment on corporate profits for the first time since March 2023 as the pace of its recovery was moderating.
Nissan says it will not take new U.S. orders for Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs
A Nissan manufacturing complex in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Nissan says it will not take new orders from the United States for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs following new auto tariffs levied by the U.S.
Japan digs deep to address 'national crisis' caused by Trump tariffs
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office on April 1. He has said that Japan is facing a "national crisis" following the introduction of new tariffs by the United States.
'Hang tough, it won't be easy': Trump defiant on tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks to deliver remarks on reciprocal tariffs during an event in the Rose Garden entitled "Make America Wealthy Again" at the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
Ishiba says he plans to speak to Trump about tariffs in coming days
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Nissan considers transferring some domestic production to U.S., report says
Nissan plans to reduce production at its Fukuoka factory and shift some manufacturing of its Rogue SUV to the United States to mitigate the impact of Trump's tariffs.
‘Let’s make it practical’: NATO chief eyes greater defense-industrial ties with Japan
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte plans to visit Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday — his first to the Indo-Pacific region since taking office in October, as he seeks to implement lessons from the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Tottori takes a bold leap forward in the arts
The city of Kurayoshi in Tottori Prefecture celebrated the opening of its public art museum with festivities such as a parade that drew 1,000 revelers.
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
Nintendo to launch the Switch 2 on June 5
The controllers for the Switch 2 will attach to the console magnetically rather than sliding on rails as with the original device.
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.

Podcast

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

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow It
By Alex K.T. Martin

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