| Aug 11 | Majority of mortgages now adjustable-rate (Yomiuri) |
| With the Bank of Japan sticking to its ultralow interest rate policy, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people taking out adjustable-rate mortgages. Some financial institutions are offering products with annual interest rates starting at 1 percent or less, apparently in an attempt to jump on the bandwagon by shifting their focus from fixed-rate loans. However, this sort of lending policy could prove risky for home buyers in that if the central bank's interest rate takes an upward turn, an adjustable-rate mortgage would weigh more heavily on borrowers than would the fixed-rate type. |
| Aug 09 | 'Economy watchers' index up in July on sales of summer items, eco-cars (AP) |
| Business confidence among workers sensitive to economic trends in Japan improved in July for the first time in three months, a Cabinet Office survey showed Monday, amid robust sales of summer items due to hot weather and a surge in sales of fuel-efficient cars ahead of the end of related government stimulus. The diffusion index in the monthly survey among so-called "economy watchers" such as workers in restaurants, retail shops and other service industries, who are most sensitive to economic cycles, climbed 2.3 points to 49.8 in July, although the figure remained below the boom-or-bust line of 50 for the 40th consecutive month. |
| Aug 09 | Mummies Tell Tale of Economy Missing in Action: William Pesek (Bloomberg) |
| It sounds more like a plot for a horror film than a legitimate news story. It began last week when Tokyo's oldest man turned out to be 30 years dead, his mummified remains sharing the family home with his daughter. A bank account receiving his pension benefits was found to be alive and well. Reports that Tokyo's oldest woman -- 113 if alive -- is missing prompted a mad centenarian search. Japan is now checking on the whereabouts of 840 pensioners 85 and older. The 100-plus crowd has more than tripled to 40,399 in the past decade; it may take Japan's entire police force to locate all of them. |
| Aug 09 | APEC to seek regional growth with more jobs, structural reform (Japan Times) |
| Pacific Rim economies agreed at a high-level meeting Sunday on the need to improve the region's "quality of growth" through a growth strategy to encourage job creation, the development of smaller businesses and structural reforms. The 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which held a two-day meeting from Saturday to specifically discuss the envisioned long-term comprehensive strategy, also reached a consensus to report on the progress of the strategy's implementation in 2015. |
| Aug 09 | Web site playing Cupid to spur on Japanese growth (Taipei Times) |
| The coastal region of Fukui has Japan’s biggest share of dual-income households, the highest ratio of working women and the lowest unemployment rate. What it doesn't have is enough babies. The provincial government this month is starting the Fukui Marriage-Hunting Cafe, a Web site for singles, to help stem the falling birthrate as it begins to damage the economy. As an added incentive, couples who agree to marry will get cash or gifts, said Akemi Iwakabe, deputy director of Fukui's Children and Families division. "Many of our single residents were telling us that they wanted to get married, but couldn't because they weren’t meeting anyone," she said. Japan's first online dating service organized by a prefectural government follows national measures to extend parental leave that have so far failed to convince women to have more children. The fertility rate has dropped to 1.34 children per woman, shrinking the pool of workers and consumers and increasing the burden on younger employees to pay for an aging population. |
| Aug 07 | METI sets up panel to export infrastructure (Japan Times) |
| The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry set up a panel involving both the public and private sectors to study ways to gain infrastructure-related business orders abroad. The Thursday creation of the new organization to promote the export of nuclear power plants and high-speed rail systems came after Japanese companies failed to participate in projects to build atomic plants in Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates. |
| Aug 06 | Japan's key economic gauge up 0.1 point in June (AP) |
| Japan's key economic gauge rose 0.1 point in June from the previous month on the back of an improvement in job availability and shipments in machinery and other investment goods, bouncing back from the previous month's fall, the government said Friday. The composite index of coincident economic indicators, including industrial production, overtime work hours and retail sales, stood at 101.3 against the 2005 base of 100, the Cabinet Office said in a preliminary report. The figure matched the median market forecast of a 0.1 point rise in a Kyodo News survey. |
| Aug 06 | Office vacancy rate in central Tokyo posts 1st fall in 30 months (AP) |
| The average office vacancy rate in five central wards of Tokyo at the end of July fell by 0.04 percentage point from a month earlier to 9.10 percent, the first fall in 30 months, office broker Miki Shoji Co. said Thursday. The fall in Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku and Shibuya wards came as office supply declined amid widespread concern over the future course of the economy, Miki Shoji said. |
| Aug 05 | Hey Japan: Why So Glum? (Wall Street Journal) |
| Japan may not be at the top of its economic game but should sentiment in the world's second-biggest economy be on par with Lithuania? While the rest of Asia was ready to hit the mall, Japan bucked the trend in growing consumer optimism across the region. With a survey score of 55, the country's confidence ranked second-lowest, just a notch above Lithuania, among 48 countries, according to Nielsen's second-quarter global consumer confidence survey. Japan and South Korea were the only two Asian countries included in the bottom 10 index readings compiled by the New York-based company in June. |
| Aug 05 | 10-year JGB yield sinks below 1% (Yomiuri) |
| The yield on the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond closed below the 1 percent threshold Wednesday as concern over the global economic slowdown grows both at home and abroad, prompting investors to seek safety in government bonds. |
| Aug 05 | Concerns about economic slide spread in BOJ (Asahi) |
| The Bank of Japan maintains that the economy is gradually recovering, but fears of a downturn have increasingly spread among members of the central bank's Policy Board. They are now paying more attention to potential negative factors from overseas, especially jitters in the United States, than to positive aspects that have pushed Japan's recovery, such as growth in emerging economies. |
| Aug 05 | Japan's Cheap Debt Could Cost the World Dearly (Daily Finance) |
| Japan has been piling up debt for years. Over two decades, the government of the world's second-largest economy has borrowed staggering sums of money to fund domestic stimulus spending. Much of the spending has produced public goods of questionable value, the Japanese equivalents of "bridges to nowhere." This profligate borrowing has left the island nation with ratio of debt to gross domestic product (GDP) nearing 200%, almost double that of troubled Greece (113%). |
| Aug 04 | Japan May Sell Rice to Replace Corn in Feed as Government Stockpiles Swell (Bloomberg) |
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| Aug 04 | Key 10-year JGB bond falls below 1% for 1st time in 7 yrs (Kyodo) |
| The yield on the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond fell below the 1 percent threshold Wednesday morning for the first time in seven years, as uncertainty about the global economic outlook continued to prod investors to seek safety in government bonds. |
| Aug 04 | BOJ's plan to boost business (Japan Times) |
| The Bank of Japan has announced a new lending plan to back up the government's economic growth strategy. It will lend a total of 3 trillion yen at an annual interesting rate of 0.1 percent - the same rate as the central bank's key interest rate - to banks, which will then lend the money to enterprises at an interest rate lower than usual rates. The new loan scheme is unusual in that the central bank has allowed itself to be directly involved in the government's economic policy. The BOJ must be feeling a sense of urgency about the poor state of the economy. |
| Aug 03 | Inflation targets won't halt deflation: former BOJ deputy (Japan Times) |
| Toshiro Muto, former deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, said inflation targeting by the central bank would do little to end deflation, dismissing an effort by politicians to impose such a measure. Prime Minister Naoto Kan is facing pressure from within his party as well as rival lawmakers to make the BOJ target specific inflation levels. Consumer prices have fallen for 16 straight months, and a rising yen threatens to contribute to deflation by lowering import costs. |
| Aug 02 | Japanese Yen: Intervention is Imminent? (favstocks.com) |
| I last mused about the possibility of Japanese Yen intervention in June (Japanese Yen: 90 or 95?): "It seems that anything between 90 and 95 is acceptable, while a drop below 90 is cause for intervention." Since then, the Japanese Yen has fallen below 86 Yen per Dollar (the USD/JPY pair is now down 7% on the year), and analysts are beginning to wonder aloud about when the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will step in. The BOJ last intervened in 2004. Given both the price tag ($250 Billion) and the fact that in hindsight its efforts were futile, it appears somewhat determined to avoid that route if possible. |
| Aug 02 | Japan women step up to make big purchases in slow economy (Los Angeles Times) |
| After 25 years working as an accounting assistant in a leading construction company, Asako Nakano decided two summers ago that she needed to stabilize her retirement plans. So she took the plunge and bought a condominium. "The decision to put almost all my savings into a home for myself was a bit daunting, but I never hesitated," said the friendly, confident single woman. "I thought to myself, I am never going to get married, so why not invest in my future? It made sense to me." With a little assistance from her mother, the 52-year-old paid almost $100,000 as a 40% down payment for her apartment in a leafy residential area of Tokyo. Japan's effort to dig itself out of its economic malaise is getting a boost from an unlikely source - the nation's female workforce. |
| Jul 30 | Japan's unemployment rises, output falls (AFP) |
 Japan's unemployment rate ticked higher while production of automobiles and electronic gadgets saw a surprise slip in June, data showed Friday, in signs that an export-driven recovery may be stalling.
The data poses a challenge for Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government, which must balance Japan's uncertain economic reality with an agenda that has placed cutting the industrialised world's biggest public debt at its core.
Shipments of cars, gadgets and components have been crucial in offsetting a weaker demand picture back home, but concern is mounting that Beijing's efforts to cool China's economy and doubts over eurozone and US demand may hit Japan.
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| Jul 30 | Japan, Mongolia agree to cooperate on resource development (AP) |
| Japan and Mongolia agreed Thursday to cooperate closely on the development of mineral resources and energy in Mongolia through technology transfers and investment, Japanese officials said. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku met with visiting Mongolian Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Dashdorj Zorigt and briefed him on Japan's new growth strategy that features exports of technology, finance and personnel training know-how. |
| Jul 29 | Don't scorn Germany and Japan; learn from them (Los Angeles Times) |
| In the midst of the Great Recession, the United States is suffering through nearly 10% unemployment, rising inequality and poverty, 47 million people without health insurance, declining retirement prospects for the middle class and a general increase in economic insecurity. The global marketplace has become tumultuous, so when we find a bright spot, one would think it deserves a mention. How then should we regard a country that has 5% unemployment, the lowest income inequality, healthcare for all its people and is one of the world's leading exporters? |
| Jul 28 | All ministries face 10% budget cut (Japan Times) |
| Despite dissent within the ranks of his Democratic Party of Japan and Cabinet, Prime Minister Naoto Kan's administration endorsed on Tuesday a 10 percent cut on all ministries' fiscal 2011 budget requests and earmark at least ¥1 trillion to stimulate economic growth. The approved guideline, which ministries will use when they compile their budget requests, caps annual policy-related spending at ¥71 trillion, as previously pledged by Kan. The Cabinet also agreed to hold open debate on which projects deserve a share of the ¥1 trillion. |
| Jul 27 | Kan, ministers agree to 'actively' seek FTAs (AP) |
| Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other ministers on Tuesday affirmed that that they will actively work to seek free trade agreements with other countries, trade minister Masayuki Naoshima said. It was the first gathering of ministers to discuss the issue since Kan succeeded Yukio Hatoyama as premier in June, according to a government official. "The Kan Cabinet would like to actively work (on the trade agreement issue) in the same way as the Hatoyama Cabinet," Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Naoshima told a regular press conference. |
| Jul 27 | 'No pressure,' says BOJ's 1st female branch manager (Yomiuri) |
| Despite her recent appointment as the first female branch manager in the 128-year history of the Bank of Japan, Tokiko Shimizu says she feels no pressure. She's probably telling the truth, for this is not the first, or even the second time she's broken such ground at the central bank. Shimizu was also the first woman to be appointed deputy head of the bank's London office, her former post, and the first to be in charge of foreign exchange intervention. |
| Jul 27 | Stimulus cut of ¥1 trillion tough for Kan (Japan Times) |
| A Cabinet committee endorsed a plan Monday to earmark more than ¥1 trillion for stimulus growth measures in the fiscal 2011 budget, instead of the ¥2 trillion the ruling Democratic Party of Japan has urged the government to allocate for such measures. The draft also urges each ministry and agency to cut back on requests for policy-related spending in the fiscal year starting next April by 10 percent to squeeze out funds for the special allocation. |
| Jul 26 | Gov't eyes over 1 tril. yen for growth stimulus in FY 2011 budget (AP) |
| The government is considering securing over 1 trillion yen for special growth stimulus measures in its budget for fiscal 2011, Cabinet members said Monday. The government is also planning to widely canvass public opinion on what policies should be pursued under the stimulus spending, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said at a press conference. The ruling Democratic Party of Japan proposed last week allocating at least 2 trillion yen for fresh growth steps within the government's spending cap of 71 trillion yen for the year through March 2012. |
| Jul 26 | Why Japan finds it So Hard to Change (Time) |
 Sometimes Japan seems to be on the wrong continent. Everywhere else in Asia, from Shanghai to Mumbai to Jakarta, there is an aura of perpetual motion, a sense that tomorrow will be better than today. The region is on a frenetic 365-day-a-year hurtle into a brighter future. Japan once shared Asia's dynamism and mission. But not anymore. Today, Japan is an island of inertia in an Asia in constant flux. Japan's political leadership is paralyzed, its corporate elite befuddled, its people agonized about the future. While Asia lurches forward, Japan inches backward.
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| Jul 25 | Young Japanese are outsourcing themselves (The Hindu) |
| In October 2008, at the height of the financial crisis when job markets were freezing up globally, Akane Natori easily found a position she liked. "Things went so smoothly after applying online, and before I knew it, I had the job," said Ms Natori, who was then a 26-year-old sales assistant at an import-export company in Tokyo. There was just one catch: Ms Natori's new job - working in a call centre answering queries from customers in Japan - was in Bangkok. The trend is one that speaks volumes about the Japanese economy and the challenges younger Japanese face in a country where college graduates used to count on lifetime employment with the company they joined. |
| Jul 24 | Deflation said a structural problem (Japan Times) |
| The country's decades-long deflation is largely attributable to a chronic demand shortfall and heavy dependence on exports to China and other emerging economies where price competition is tough, according to a government report issued Friday. The Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finances released by the Cabinet Office notes that the nation was prone to deflation because of structural problems long before the financial crisis hit the global economy in 2008, driving price levels down across the world. |
| Jul 24 | Paper: Helping business helps nation (Yomiuri) |
| The Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finances for fiscal 2010, submitted to the Cabinet on Friday, urges lower corporate taxes and a higher consumption tax rate. The white paper, submitted by state minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy Satoshi Arai at a Cabinet meeting, argues that lowering the effective corporate tax rate is necessary to help companies grow and enable the nation to reverse lingering deflationary trends. The government needs to increase household incomes by enhancing companies' profitability, the paper says. It also strongly urges that the consumption tax rate be raised to aid reconstruction of the government's finances. |
| Jul 23 | Japan: Land Of The Rising Sum (UPI) |
| Sensitivity to the sovereign debt crisis has brought scrutiny to Japan. The nation's already high debt has continued to escalate. In the 1990's the debt was 86% of GDP, and now it has reached nearly 200% -- twice the size of its $5 trillion economy. The budget deficit will continue at 5% until 2021. The country is referred to as the land of the rising "sum" and many speculate on its demise. The combination of an aging population, low tax revenue and rising debt make these fears palpable. |
| Jul 23 | DPJ panel proposes funding for stimulus (Japan Times) |
| A Democratic Party of Japan panel proposed Thursday using ¥2 trillion from within the planned spending cap of ¥71 trillion for fiscal 2011 for steps to spur economic growth and create jobs, a DPJ official said. Arrangements are currently under way for Koichiro Gemba, head of the party's policy research council, to convey the proposal to the government, according to Koriki Jojima, deputy head of the council. |
| Jul 22 | What's Ahead for the Yen? (SeekingAlpha) |
| Home of sumos, samurais and sushi, Japan occupies a unique place within world history. Part of this history involves Japan's ascendency as a centre for international trade and commerce: salarymen, massive conglomerates and innovation serve as some of the defining features of the Japanese economy. In the world of finance, Japan has also played a pivotal role. Take, for example, the development of the first organized exchange with standardized futures contracts in Dojima, circa 1730. |
| Jul 22 | Japan: Land of the Rising Debt (benzinga.com) |
| Investors are understandably scared of the sovereign debt crisis unfolding in Europe. Amid their angst, however, they are ignoring a more likely, and significantly larger, debt catastrophe that is about to hit the nation with the second-largest economy in the world - Japan. Two decades of stimulative, low-interest-rate fiscal policy have made Japan the most indebted nation in the developed world, and as new Prime Minister Naoto Kan recently said, in his first address to Parliament, that situation is not sustainable. Japan has little choice but to raise interest rates substantially, with dire consequences far beyond its shores. |
| Jul 21 | Kan seeks ¥71 trillion budget spending cap (Japan Times) |
| The Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan approved a plan Tuesday to keep general account spending for fiscal 2011 below the ¥71 trillion planned for fiscal 2010, as the administration aims to form a more detailed budgetary guideline by the end of the month. Within the ¥71 trillion, the Democratic Party of Japan-led government will put priority on a new growth strategy and campaign pledges the party made for the July 11 Upper House election, according to the outline endorsed by the Cabinet. |
| Jul 20 | Summer bonuses at large firms rise 1st time in 3 yrs in Japan (AP) |
| Major Japanese companies are paying an average 757,638 yen in summer bonuses, up 0.55 percent from a year ago and the first increase in three years, the Japan Business Federation said Tuesday. The weighted average of amounts the firms struck with their labor unions rose 1.02 percent in the manufacturing sector to 741,395 yen but dipped 0.77 percent for nonmanufacturers to 804,706 yen, said Japan's most influential business lobby known as Nippon Keidanren. |
| Jul 20 | Japan Suffering From 'Aid Fatigue' (ino.com) |
| Recession-hit Japan has indicated that it will no longer be possible for it to offer aid to poor countries in the wake of the continuing global recession and a weak U.S. economy. A Japanese representative said the world's second largest economy was suffering from "aid fatigue", and asked leaders of 55 Indian and Asian political parties attending an anti-poverty conference in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming not to look to Tokyo for aid any longer. |
| Jul 17 | Cabinet to see 2011 budget outline (Japan Times) |
| Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said he will present to Cabinet next Tuesday a rough guideline on how to formulate the fiscal 2011 state budget, with an eye to gaining endorsement by month's end. "I would like to push ahead with preparations so I can present an outline as early as Tuesday," Noda said at a news conference Friday at the Finance Ministry, noting he was ordered to work out the outline by Prime Minister Naoto Kan during an informal Cabinet meeting earlier in the day. |
| Jul 16 | My $80,000 Says Deflation Will Only Get Worse: William Pesek (BusinessWeek) |
| Naoto Kan may get the state dinners and the motorcades, but he no longer runs Japan. Economist Masaaki Shirakawa does. If anything is clear since the drubbing that Prime Minister Kan's Democratic Party of Japan took earlier this week, it's that politicians are passing the buck to the central bank. Expect Bank of Japan Governor Shirakawa to feel more pressure to boost economic growth than ever before. You may think you have seen this movie before. You haven't. Increased reliance on the BOJ will end badly for the world economy. It's now entirely possible that, come September, Japan will have its sixth leader in four years. |
| Jul 16 | Japan's provinces are withering away (BusinessWeek) |
| On the block where Mika Nasu's clothing shop sits along the main street of Atami, a resort town 65 miles south of Tokyo, 13 of 19 stores are shuttered. "Recovery? What recovery?" asks Nasu, 50. "It just gets worse and worse." Nasu's struggles are reflected in the Bank of Japan's Sakura Report, a regional survey akin to the Federal Reserve's Beige Book. In the July 8 report, companies from seven of Japan's nine regions expect business to worsen in the next three months. Kanto, the region that includes metropolitan Tokyo, is the only one where business anticipates any improvement. If the economy consisted solely of urban areas like Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, things would look better. |
| Jul 15 | A Case for Japanese Hyperinflation (Wall Street Journal) |
 fter massive bouts of monetary stimulus world-wide during the past couple of years, including central bank monetization of government debt, it's no longer just signed-up members of the lunatic fringe who worry about hyperinflation.
Unless, of course, you're talking Japan. And yet there's probably no other major economy more at risk of it.
At this point, anybody who's cast even a cursory eye at Japanese consumer prices or the performance of Japanese government bonds during the past two decades offers up a chuckle, shakes his head and wanders off. But there's a good case to be made for a very serious bout of Japanese inflation, and not just in the far-distant future.
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| Jul 14 | Japan Faces Possible Credit Downgrade (ntdtv.com) |
| Standard & Poor's and Fitch are warning Japan of possible credit rating downgrades, after an election humbling raised fears about the government's commitment to fiscal reform. S&P said late Monday that it may cut Japan's sovereign debt rating if the mountain of red ink grows or there is a lack of concrete policy steps, while Fitch joined the chorus Tuesday. |
| Jul 14 | Aim to expand the middle class (Japan Times) |
| Although the government announced in June a growth strategy that emphasizes the creation of new industries in such fields as environment, nonfossil-fuel energy and health-related services, the big problem for Japan is that its middle class is waning. The period of high economic growth begot the phrase "ichioku so churyu" (100 million people in the middle class). They enjoyed strong purchasing power and avidly bought the "3Cs" - cars, coolers (air conditioners) and color TVs. This mass consumption spurred strong domestic demand, which along with brisk exports served as a locomotive for the economy in the 1960s and 1970s. |
| Jul 13 | IMF optimistic about Japan debt cut effort (Reuters) |
| A senior IMF official said on Tuesday he was optimistic about Japan's effort to cut back public debt despite the weekend's election results because the main political parties agreed on the need for urgency. "You saw from the campaign that the main opposition party as well as the DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) was speaking about the need to adjust taxes for public debt," Anoop Singh, director of the International Monetary Fund's Asia and Pacific department, told Reuters in an interview. |
| Jul 13 | Japan growth plan may hurt, not boost, economy (moneycontrol.com) |
| If history is anything to go by, Japan's plan to boost the sluggish economy by pouring cash into so-called growth sectors could do more harm than good by adding a drag on the country's already relatively low productivity. Prime Minister Naoto Kan hopes to win votes in Sunday's upper house elections with a growth strategy he says will increase real growth to 2% a year. |
| Jul 13 | BOJ to face pressure to fight deflation (Japan Times) |
| Pressure on the Bank of Japan to fight deflation is likely to increase following the coalition government's defeat in the Upper House election, economists said. Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government lost control of the chamber in Sunday's contest, meaning he will have to rely on smaller parties to pass laws smoothly. While that may undermine his ability to cut the world's largest public debt, his adversaries at least agree on the need for a swift end to the price declines that are undermining the economic recovery. |
| Jul 12 | Kan says sales tax hike behind Sunday's election setback (AP) |
| Prime Minister Naoto Kan attributed Sunday's upper house election setback for the ruling coalition led by his Democratic Party of Japan to his raising the possibility of an increase in the nation's sales tax, while adding that he will remain in office. At a press conference in the early hours of Monday, Kan, also DPJ president, said, "Voters may have felt it (my proposal for a sales tax hike) came all of a sudden and I am sorry that I failed to explain the matter fully in advance." |
| Jul 09 | Could Japan Collapse? (The Diplomat) |
| Since taking office last month, Prime Minister Naoto Kan has dramatically shifted the focus of political and economic debate in Japan to the nation's shocking finances. Japan is in danger of financial collapse, Kan warned, as he called for a hike of the 5 percent consumption tax. Coming just before an important upper house election on Sunday, it was a bold move to touch a traditional 'third rail' of politics. And in doing so, he has turned the poll into something of a referendum on increasing the sales tax. Broaching the subject has suddenly become possible in part because of the Greek debt crisis and its repercussions in the Eurozone and beyond. Scenes of public unrest in Greece on TV news shows and the rapid escalation in the scale of the bailouts needed by Athens have made the Japanese public more aware of the potential consequences of national debt problems. |
| Jul 08 | Bankruptcies in 1st half of 2010 mark 1st drop in 5 years (AP) |
| The number of corporate bankruptcies in Japan in the first half of 2010 dropped 16.9 percent from the same period last year to 6,790, the first year-on-year drop in five years for the January to June period, backed mainly by government measures supporting corporate financing, a credit research firm said Thursday. Liabilities that accompanied the corporate failures fell 9.5 percent to 4.24 trillion yen, Tokyo Shoko Research said, noting that credit became more readily available for small companies under government programs. |
| Jul 08 | Economic fears causes Japan machinery order drop (AFP) |
 A key indicator of Japanese corporate capital spending fell the most since 2008 in May, data showed Thursday, in a fresh sign that a fragile economic recovery may be losing momentum.
Japan's core private-sector machinery orders dropped 9.1 percent in May from the previous month as firms held back on business investment, the steepest decline since August 2008. The fall in the volatile indicator was the first decline in three months and much larger than the median forecast of a 3.0 percent decline in a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and the Nikkei business daily.
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