• Home
• About/Contact
• Economic Reports
• Research
• Advertising

• Business
• Economics
• Reports
• Finance
• Marketing
• Politics
• Real Estate
• Services
• Retail
• Tech

Subscribe

DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama: Japan must shake off US-style globalization

A translation of an opinion piece entitled Japan must shake off US-style globalization by Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama appears in this week’s edition of the Christian Science Monitor. As Hotoyama is widely expected to be the next Prime Minister of Japan after the results of next Sunday’s election come in, the article offers some important insight into what opinions Hatoyama feels will curry favor with the Japanese public in the run-up to the election.

Hatoyama starts the essay with this: Read more

Nonprescription drug sales in Japan take one step forward and one step back from tomorrow

As of Monday morning, sales of most nonprescription drugs in Japan will be allowed at supermarkets and convenience stores due to a revision in the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law. Until today, any store wishing to sell nonprescription drugs was required to have a licensed pharmacist on staff. As of tomorrow, shops will be able to sell most prescription drugs over the counter provided they have a “registered salesperson” on duty.

The revision to the law divides nonprescription drugs into three categories. Category one drugs, which are classified as those that need some form of supervision, cannot be sold unless a pharmacist is on hand to provide customers with an explanation of the drug’s side effects. On the other hand, category two and category three drugs are considered safer, and can be sold by a “registered salesperson.” Category two and three drugs make up about 90% of Japan’s nonprescription drug market. Read more

Notes on real estate: Office vacancies up, rents down, fewer new condos on the market

In an article published last week, the Nikkei tells us that vacancy rates at office buildings in central Tokyo inched up 0.2% to 3.4% in January, according to data from CB Richard Ellis. This is the sixth consecutive month in which vacancy rates have increased. At the same time, average rent per tsubo, about 3.3 square meters, decreased 0.3% (about 40 yen) to 15,310 yen.

On Monday, the Real Estate Economic Institute announced that the number of new condo units put up for sale in January in Tokyo decreased 24.1% against a year ago, to 1,760 units. This was the 17th consecutive month in which the supply of new condo units has slipped. 64.2% of new units were sold within a month of being put on the market, which is up from the 61.9% seen in December but still less than the 70% sales ratio considered as healthy by the industry.

The average price of a new condo in Tokyo was about 41.72 million yen, down 0.9% from a year ago. Adjusting for the average size of a new condo, this is about 590,000 yen per square meter.

Aso: Japan to emerge first from the global recession

For anyone watching the news on New Year’s Day in Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso’s comments could only come across as bizarre, if not slightly entertaining in a dark way. English language media is reporting Aso as having said, “The government will do its utmost to ease people’s worries about the economy and their livelihoods. Japan will become the first country in the world to emerge from this recession.” The original Japanese, as reported by the Nikkei, was this: “国民の景気や生活への不安を取り除くため、全力を尽くす。世界の中で最も早くこの不況から脱するのは日本だ。” It sounds more like a typical empty campaign pledge to these ears.

Of course, Aso gave no specifics. He did, however, emphasize that the global economic crisis is “US originated” (he loves to point that out), and said that such an event only happens once every 100 years.

At this point, it barely matters what Aso says, since his days in office are numbered, to put things kindly. However, the lack of understanding betrayed by his comments must have left quite a few heads shaking.

Just five days ago, the Nikkei reported that job cuts, which have thus far been almost entirely restricted to temporary and part-time workers, are likely to spill over into cuts of full-time, salaried workers. The Nikkei contends that roughly 88,000 jobs are lost with each 1 trillion yen drop in production of transportation machinery, for example. By such measures, the paper reckons that about 100,000 jobs will be lost in the automotive industry (including parts makers) alone by springtime.

The Cabinet Office itself is forecasting zero percent GDP growth in FY2009. Aso simply is not doing his party any favors by making such announcements without providing any insight as to how he plans to achieve such a goal. In other words, he doesn’t.

Jiyugaoka is Tokyo’s most desirable neighborhood

According to the average result of surveys carried out over the past five years by Major 7, a website run by a consortium of real estate firms, Jiyugaoka has been voted the most desirable neighborhood within Tokyo’s 23 wards to live in, followed by Futakotamagawa and Ebisu. The rest of the ranking went like this: Read more

Subprime buyins: Nomura at Lehman’s, Mitsubishi at Morgan Stanley

As I noted in the most recent edition of Seijigiri over at Trans-Pacific Radio, on September 16 Lehman Brothers failed to make a 121 billion yen payment to the Ministry of Finance for 2 year bonds that it had agreed to purchase at auction. In addition, another 288.5 billion yen in 5 and 10 year government bonds were bid for but never paid for. The Ministry of Finance, however, apparently does not plan on making any addition bond issuances, as the non-payment for these bonds amounts to about 0.3% of this year’s total planned issue.

In other news, it appears that Nomura has bid successfully to take over Lehman’s Asia operations. Lehman was also the lead underwriter for the Urban Renaissance Agency’s planned issuance of 40 billion yen worth of bonds later this week (Remember them? Chaired by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Urban Renaissance Agency were leading the operation to build a foreigner-friendly financial district in Tokyo). Nomura will now manage the issue of these bonds.

At any rate, the Nomura buyout of Lehman’s operations reportedly cost the firm just over 20 billion yen. From December to May, Lehman’s Asia-Pacific operations posted revenues of about 147 billion yen. Although the purchase does not include real estate assets, it still gets Nomura a boost in the Asia market, where it has made some inroads in recent years. The big question now will be how many of Lehman’s former 3,000 employees in the region Nomura will be able to keep on deck. Read more

Japan supermarket sales up 0.9% in July, first rise since February

Japan’s supermarket sales rose for the first time in four months in July, post a 0.9% gain to 1.12 trillion yen, according to the Japan Chain Stores Association. These figures follow a 0.9% fall in May, and represents only the second time supermarket sales have increased in the past 31 months. However, when new shops (those opened within the past year) are included in the data, supermarkets saw a 4.4% decline in sales.

Here is a breakdown of June’s adjusted figures (not including newly opened stores): Read more

Record number of foreign tourists visit Japan in January-June 2008 period

In 2007, 8.35 million foreign tourists visited Japan. According to data released today by the Japan National Tourist Organization, the first half of 2008 saw about 4.33 million foreign tourists enter the country, which was a 10% gain on 2007 figures.

The Japanese government has very clearly stated its goal to continue seeing an increase in the number of tourists coming to Japan from foreign shores. As we covered previously, the government has set targets of 10 million visitors by 2010 and 20 million by 2020.

In terms of numbers, visitors from South Korea made up the largest group, with 1.32 million visiting Japan from January to June That figure was up 8.1% on the year. The largest percentage rise was seen from Hong Kong, which sent an increase of 36.7% more travelers, to hit 267,000. Read more

Retail Roundup: Seiyu announces more changes to come

Let’s start by looking at Seiyu, a firm that has been much discussed on this website over the past year or so. According to the Nikkei, Seiyu intends to renovate about 90 of its locations over the coming two years, at a cost of over 30 billion yen.

Seiyu lost about 20 billion yen in fiscal 2007 and has been in the red for six straight years. The Nikkei tells us that Seiyu intends to sell more Wal-Mart brand casual clothing at its shops, despite the fact that clothing sales at supermarkets continues to fall - they were down 8.6% in May alone. Seiyu also intends to link up further with Wal-Mart in terms of sourcing products from China. Although this might make economic sense, it also bucks the trend of consumer mistrust of goods produced in China.

Finally, we see that Seiyu intends to carry an “expanded lineup” of flat-panel TVs. Again, supermarkets are generally selling less of this kind of stuff, and it’s hard to imagine Seiyu outpricing, let alone out-marketing the Yodabashi, Bic Cameras and Kojima Denki shops in this area.

Finally, sales per square meter continue to decline at Japan’s supermarkets. Yet again, Seiyu intends to focus its renovation efforts on its larger locations, with 6,000 to 10,000 square meters of shop space.

New Tokyo Tower to be called Tokyo Sky Tree

Yes, it’s official: The 610 meter world’s tallest tower¹ will officially be called Tokyo Sky Tree.

As a friend pointed out this weekend: “They let the fans name the Nashville Predators and the Atlanta Thrashers.”

¹The debate is open on that, so fire away.

Next Page »

Copyright © 2006-2010 Japan Economy News

Privacy Policy | Disclaimer