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Shiseido shifts focus to quality products that are made in Japan

Jun 11, 2022 (Asahi) - Cosmetics giant Shiseido Co. is relocating its production facilities back to Japan in seeking to win customers with a “made-in-Japan” brand.

Buoyed by the weakening yen, Shiseido is looking to bolster its exports from Japan to various areas around the world as fewer foreign visitors can travel to Japan to buy their products.

Shiseido unveiled its Fukuoka Kurume Factory to reporters on May 26, which started operations in April in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture. The facility can make 140 million units of skincare products from its core Elixir line and other lines annually.

Products manufactured there are sent out not only to Japanese consumers but also to those in China and other Asian nations from nearby Hakata Port. Profits linked to the plant are expected to rise due to the recent drop in the yen.

Shiseido in December 2019 opened its Nasu Factory in Otawara, Tochigi Prefecture--its first new facility in Japan in 36 years. The Osaka Ibaraki Factory was next created in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, in December 2020, before the latest Fukuoka Kurume Factory opened.

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Japan's World Cup campaign begins on June 14 when the Samurai Blue face the Netherlands at Dallas Stadium in Texas, a clash that will showcase some of the game's most talented players and pit two ambitious teams against one another in a crucial Group F opener. While Japan arrives without injured winger Kaoru Mitoma, one of its most recognizable stars, the squad still boasts a wealth of talent drawn from Europe's top leagues.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) announced that an El Niño phenomenon is believed to have developed this spring, warning that Japan is likely to experience above-average temperatures nationwide this summer despite the climate pattern's traditional association with cooler summers.

Narita International Airport Corporation is expected to announce next month that it will apply to the national government for project certification as part of the process to enable compulsory land acquisition for the construction of a new runway at Narita Airport, according to sources familiar with the matter.

A fire broke out at Arima Inari Shrine near the Arima Onsen hot spring resort area in Kobe on the night of June 9th, destroying multiple buildings and leaving an elderly Shinto priest and his wife with minor injuries.

Japan's national soccer team arrived in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 8th from Monterrey, Mexico, where it had been conducting a pre-World Cup training camp, and held its first practice session at its base camp for the FIFA World Cup in North America.

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The Bank of Japan is set to raise its policy interest rate from 0.75% to 1.0% at its monetary policy meeting on June 15th and 16th, a move that could mark another step in the central bank's gradual shift away from ultra-loose monetary policy as inflation remains elevated and the yen continues to weaken.

The contemporary corporate field across Japan is undergoing a profound digital transformation as forward-thinking organizations strive to maintain their market competitiveness in a globalized economy.

Japan's corporate goods prices rose 6.3% in May from a year earlier, marking the fastest pace of increase in more than three years as higher oil and petrochemical costs linked to tensions in the Middle East pushed up wholesale prices.

The Bank of Japan is increasingly expected to raise its policy interest rate to 1.0% at next week's monetary policy meeting, responding to growing concerns that inflation could rise faster than previously anticipated due to soaring oil prices and other cost pressures.

The number of restaurant bankruptcies in Japan reached a record high for the January–May period, highlighting mounting pressures from rising costs, labor shortages, and increasingly cautious consumer spending.

Casio Computer, the company behind some of Japan’s most iconic consumer electronics including calculators, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and the G-SHOCK watch, is pursuing a new strategy aimed at reviving its tradition of product innovation.

Nippon Steel plans to invest up to $2.5 billion, or approximately 400 billion yen, over the next three years in the Mon Valley Works steel complex in Pennsylvania, one of the key facilities operated by U.S. Steel, the American steelmaker it acquired in 2025.

Japan's economy grew at an annualized rate of 1.8% in the January–March quarter of 2026, according to revised gross domestic product (GDP) data released by the Cabinet Office, with the figure marked down from the preliminary estimate due largely to weaker-than-expected capital investment.