Japan Economy News & Blog
News and Reports on the State of Japan's Economy - With Links to Sundry Resources



Japan?s foreign reserves fall in April; Should 80% be sold off? (May 9)
Earlier today, the Ministry of Finance announced that the value of Japan’s foreign reserves had fallen for the first time in eleven months in April, from $1.02 trillion in March to $1.0 trillion. Japan’s foreign reserve yields suffered the negative impact of declining euro and dollar values in April. Last week, Waseda University professor and former [...]


Japan auto sales up 6.9% in April, Exports and Production up in March (May 3)
According data released last Thursday by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association, domestic auto sales in April increased to 232,993 vehicles, up from 217,911 in April 2007. Major auto makers did well: Toyota saw an increase of 8.8%, Nissan saw a rise of 11.5% and Honda sales increased 4.7%. By category, passenger car sales were up 9.4% [...]


March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo (May 2)
Last week, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism released its figures for March housing starts. Last year, we saw a huge decline in the number of housing starts as new government regulations threw the industry into a state of limbo. From July to December, new housing starts fell by 23.4%, 43.3%, 44.0%, 35.0%, [...]


Japan?s household spending down 1.6% in March - durables hit harder (Apr 30)
With food and fuel prices surging, Japan’s consumers have expressed their lowest degree of sentiment in nearly five years. In the face of sluggish wage growth, we have been expecting to see households begin to tighten their belts and rein in spending. After seeing increases of 2.2% in December and 3.6% in January, February’s household [...]


March consumer price index up 1.2% - is a pull out of deflation coming at the wrong time for the wrong reasons? (Apr 28)
On Friday, the Statistics Bureau announced that Japan’s core consumer prices had risen 1.2% in March compared to a year earlier. This follows a1.0% rise in February and successive 0.8% rises in December and January. March was sixth consecutive month that core consumer prices showed an increase, and the 1.2% increase was the largest seen [...]


Global Voices Online looks at the butter shortage (Apr 26)
Hanako Tokita over at Global Voices has posted an interesting article entitled Where has all the butter gone? As US retail shops grab headlines by rationing rice to customers, there has been a rash of supermarkets in Japan that simply have no butter left on their shelves. To help give a perspective on the issue, [...]


Bloomberg?s William Pesek on Japan?s (lack of) English ability, and why it hurts competition (Apr 25)
Bloomberg’s William Pesek has penned an excellent opinion piece on why Japan needs to focus on better English education for its workforce at this point in history. As he points out, without English ability across the spectrum, Japan will simply never be able to achieve its stated goal of being Asia’s leading financial hub. So [...]


Japan?s supermarket sales up 1.4% in March for second straight monthly rise (Apr 22)
In February, Japan’s supermarkets finally showed an official rise in sales after having declined for 25 straight months. However, as we noted, sales were actually down 2.39% when not “adjusted”, i.e., when stores opened in the past year were included. March figures were similar, with a 1.4% official rise reported, but sales down 4.0% when [...]


DoCoMo has a new logo; increased market share to follow? (Apr 21)
We’ve touched before on the struggles facing DoCoMo, Japan’s mobile market leader. As the introduction of number portability and aggressive advertising and pricing campaigns from rivals AU and Softbank have driven DoCoMo’s market share under 50% for the first time since late 1998, the firm is at a crossroads. It has attempted to reassert itself [...]


Japan?s consumer confidence shows slight recovery in March (Apr 20)
After five straight months of falling consumer confidence, and numbers at nearly a five-year low in February, March consumer confidence figures showed a slight recovery, according to the Cabinet Office. After having dropped to 36.1 in February, we saw consumer confidence at 36.7 in March, which is still below the score of 37.5 that was [...]