TOKYO (Nikkei)--Japan had the highest rate of real economic growth in the Group of Seven industrialized countries last year, revised Cabinet Office figures issued Thursday show.
The nation's gross domestic product expanded a price-adjusted 3.9% in 2010. This result owes more to government stimulus measures and a statistical boost than to the underlying strength of the economy.
All the G-7 economies returned to growth last year after having shrunk in 2009 under the fallout from the financial crisis. The U.S. grew 2.8% as consumer spending, the engine of the American economy, picked up. But Japan made a particularly strong run, outstripping even export-driven Germany, whose 3.6% growth was helped by a weak euro.
Government pump-priming lasted longer in Japan, and this seems to have pushed up growth beyond the economy's actual strength. Japan was not the only G-7 country to roll out support for car buyers after the crisis, but its subsidies went on for a year and a half from April 2009. Germany's began that January and petered out that September, while the U.K.'s started that May and ended in just under a year.
Japanese GDP also benefited from a statistical bump in 2010. Because of how growth is calculated, when the economy expands faster in the October-December quarter than average growth for the whole year, GDP starts out with a leg up the following year. In Japan's case, GDP came in at a high level in the final quarter of 2009, creating a so-called carryover of about 1.7% for 2010. Without this boost, the economy actually grew only about 2%.
Despite its economic performance last year, Japan has yet to recover fully from the bruising it took in the global recession. Nominal GDP is back up to autumn 2008 levels in the U.S. and the euro zone, but Japan's is a step behind at 95% of the way there. With stimulus effects fading, this year will test the nation's true economic mettle.
Source: The Nikkei March 11 morning edition
(Kyodo)--The death toll from Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern and eastern Japan will likely surpass 10,000, the Miyagi police chief said Sunday as Japan grapples with widespread damage and a crisis at one of two affected nuclear plants.
Japanese authorities scrambled to control overheating reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and some 180,000 people joined more than 350,000 earlier evacuees by moving out of a 20-kilometer radius from the plant a day after one of its reactors partially melted Saturday.
The magnitude of the country's biggest recorded quake was revised upward the same day from 8.8 to 9.0, making it one of the largest in history, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, adding that a major aftershock is still quite likely.
''We have no choice but to deal with the situation on the premise that it (the death toll) will undoubtedly be numbered in the ten thousands,'' Naoto Takeuchi, head of the Miyagi prefectural police, said in a local disaster task force meeting, while the official tally shows 963 confirmed deaths in Miyagi and other areas.
The number of people who have died or remain unaccounted for exceeds 2,000, police said earlier in the day, as well over 600 bodies have been found in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures on the Pacific coast.
Also, local governments have been unable to contact tens of thousands of people, and at least 20,820 buildings have been fully or partially damaged in quake-hit areas.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan issued an instruction early Sunday to boost the number of Self-Defense Forces personnel sent to quake-hit areas to 100,000, one of the largest ever for an SDF operation, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said.
''I ask for utmost efforts to save the lives of as many people as possible,'' Kan said at a morning meeting of the government's emergency disaster headquarters. ''We will put all-out efforts into rescuing people who have been isolated.'' The SDF had dispatched 65,000 personnel by Saturday night, but will increase the number to 100,000 in one or two days, Kitazawa told reporters.
At the Fukushima nuclear plant, the radiation level exceeded the legal limit at one point, but Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano dismissed concerns that the level would affect human health and said trouble with the No. 3 reactor there has not led to a ''meltdown,'' a critical situation where fuel rods have melted.
Nineteen people are known to have been exposed to radiation near the plant, however, according to the Fukushima prefectural government. In Miyagi, about 200 more bodies were found in the city of Higashimatsushima, and about 10,000 people in Minamisanriku, over half the town's population, remain unaccounted for, police said.
About 4,400 people remained isolated as of Saturday night in the tsunami-swamped town of Onagawa and neighboring Ishinomaki city, in schools, hospitals, inns and the Onagawa nuclear plant where they had been evacuated to, Miyagi officials said.
In Iwate Prefecture, north of Miyagi, many bodies were found Sunday morning under the rubble in Rikuzentakata, and the U.S. military in Japan is poised to airlift about 640 isolated residents there by eight helicopters, the police and the Defense Agency said.
About 5,000 houses in the city had been submerged by quake-triggered tsunami, and the city office has confirmed that only 5,900 of its population of about 23,000 had taken shelter.
The Iwate government also said it has been unable to communicate with the mayor and officials in Otsuchi after the town office was swept away by a tsunami while the mayor and town officials were apparently inside the building. A nursing home accommodating 30 elderly people was also washed away in Ofunato city.
The Fukushima prefectural government said it was still unable to contact 1,167 residents, including 918 in the town of Namie, boosting the tally of those unaccounted for in its latest data.Helicopters from the Maritime Self-Defense Force sent to check the extent of damage spotted wood fires at seven places in Miyako city early Sunday, the Defense Agency said.
Communication failures were also found to have extended further. Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corp. said 475,400 fiber-optic services were disconnected as of 6 a.m., up 76,500 from 8 p.m. Saturday, in addition to 879,500 subscribed phone lines that remained out of service in areas centering on Iwate and Miyagi.
A total of 11,400 base stations of major cellphone operators NTT Docomo Inc., KDDI Corp. and Softbank Mobile Corp. stayed frozen as of 7:30 a.m., disrupting phone calls and emails via mobile phones across wide areas, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said.
Areas in Iwate, Miyagi and seven other prefectures remained unable to receive TV signals as of 10 a.m., it also said. Ground SDF troops, meanwhile, rescued about 5,800 people in the Miyagi town of Kesennuma and its vicinity, the Defense Ministry said.
A 60-year-old man, identified as Hiromitsu Shinkawa, was rescued by a MSDF destroyer some 15 km off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture around 12:40 p.m., and was conscious, it said. An increasing number of search and rescue teams were arriving in Japan, with a total of 69 governments and five international institutions having offered assistance, the Foreign Ministry said.
The weather agency downgraded its tsunami warning to an advisory the same day for the Pacific side of the Tohoku region in northeastern Japan, meaning the entire country was no longer subject to any higher-level tsunami warnings. The government adopted a decree late Saturday designating the quake a serious disaster eligible for increased state subsidies for reconstruction.
Source:The Nikkei March 13,2011
NEW YORK (Nikkei)--Economists here generally agree that the earthquake that has devastated northeastern Japan is unlikely to crimp the nation's economic growth for the long term.
Their relative optimism stems from the fact that damage in the greater Tokyo area was limited.
They also cite Japan's past experience in disaster recovery. But one economist warns that additional government spending for relief efforts could exacerbate Japan's fiscal woes.
Ian Bremmer, the president of U.S. research firm Eurasia Group, stresses that Japan is a quake-prone country and has a system in place to deal with a major disaster like this one. He predicts that Japan will quickly rise from the quake, with a minimal economic impact.
Kenneth Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board, agrees. The quake will hold back the economy for the short term, but the relatively minor damage at the capital will ensure that the impact will be short-lived, says Goldstein, adding that recovery demand could even end up lifting the economy.
Dan Ryan of consulting firm IHS Global Insight is more cautious, saying that consumer spending and production will be stunted for the short term, affecting the global economy as well. Yet he believes that spending in recovery efforts in the latter half of the year will cancel out the decline.
Wells Fargo and Nomura Securities Co.'s U.S. unit also argue that the impact will be mitigated for the long term, citing the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, which caused economic damage totaling 10 trillion yen.
Julian Jessop at Capital Economics, on the other hand, cautions that public spending to finance relief measures could add to Japan's towering deficit, making country's fiscal consolidation even more daunting.
Source: The Nikkei March 13 morning edition
Domestic solar cell makers getting fat on Japan subsidies
SHINICHIRO UNOZAWA
Staff writer
Japanese producers of solar cells have become heavily dependent on the domestic market for profits as they take advantage of the government's generous policy support.
Sharp Corp., Kyocera Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. are expected to report that nearly half of their solar cell revenues in fiscal 2010 came from Japan, which accounts for only 10% of the world market.
Japan's lucrative solar cell market is attracting international attention as well, with 1,680 companies from 29 countries having taken part in the PV Expo 2011, an international solar cell trade show that opened March 2 in Tokyo.
The Japanese market offers higher prices than foreign markets, thanks to government programs to promote solar power. Manufacturers are ramping up their spending on marketing and capacity expansion. Solar Frontier KK, a photovoltaic (PV) cell subsidiary of Showa Shell Sekiyu KK, launched a big TV and Internet advertising campaign for its black solar panels at the beginning of this year.
The company, which completed a large new solar panel plant in February, aims to sell 500,000kw worth of solar panels in 2011, a more than sixfold jump from the previous year. It expects the Japanese market to account for 30% of its sales.
Solar Frontier is offering thin-film PV cells, which are less efficient than crystalline silicon cells and generally viewed as unsuitable for rooftop installation.
Still, the firm is spending hundreds of millions of yen on TV and online ads because it can sell its products in Japan, where most of the demand is for household systems, at prices 30% higher than overseas, according to a senior executive.
The government provides two forms of policy support for solar power: subsidies that make it cheaper for people to install solar cells on their roofs, and a feed-in tariff system in which electric utilities buy surplus power generated by solar power systems. Many local governments offer additional subsidies.
The government money has inflated the market, helping domestic PV cell shipments to double for two years in a row.
Europe, which makes up 70% of the global solar cell market, has put the brakes on government help for the industry. France stopped accepting applications for solar power subsidies last year, while Germany and Italy have lowered solar power feed-in tariffs.
In contrast, Japanese makers are reaping huge benefits from government initiatives. Domestic sales are expected to make up 45% of Sharp's solar cell sales in the year through March. Those sales are expected to be 3.2 times larger than they were in fiscal 2008.
Mitsubishi Electric is also expecting to see its share of domestic sales to rise to nearly 50% this fiscal year, up from 20% about three years ago.
Kaneka Corp., a supplier of thin-film solar cells, launched full-scale domestic sales of household systems last April, in a shift from its previous focus on overseas sales of large PV systems. Now the company racks up nearly half of its sales in Japan.
Another factor behind Japanese firms' sales pushes at home is fierce price competition in Europe.
The average unit price of solar panels fell 40% in just one year in Europe as demand dipped and inventories grew in the wake of the global economic downturn. The price has continued to fall by about 10% per year since then.
The Japanese market is less likely to collapse because solar cell makers here mainly deal in complete household systems. But low-cost Chinese manufacturers like Sopray Solar Co. and Suntech Power Holdings Co. are fighting for a slice of the Japanese market by adopting domestic firms' "system sales" formula. They may make life more difficult for Japanese firms.
Source: The Nikkei March 14, 2011
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Amid corporate bans on carrying documents to safeguard important information, small bags in a variety of designs have found a new market in working women.
Until recently, such women had to carry bulky bags in which A4-size (29.7x21.0cm) documents could fit.
Relieved of this necessity by the new corporate rules, these women are now looking to use their bags to add to their personal style.
As wallets shrink, women are able to buy smaller handbags and change their content.
The Isetan department store in Tokyo's Shinjuku district rolled out the small bags of 10 or so popular brands in March, including those by names such as Tory Burch and See by Chloe. They were all Isetan originals.
"This year, bags a size smaller than last season's will sell well," said a source at Isetan, adding that sales have started out strong. Female office workers' bags used to have to be able to accommodate A4 documents. The bags needed to be 40-50cm wide, which meant stylish selections were limited.
But when companies began clamping down on the private transport of important corporate documents, an obstacle for bag manufacturers was removed. "Laptops and documents were no longer allowed to be carried out of the office and big bags became unnecessary," said a 49-year-old office worker shopping at the Takashimaya department store in Yokohama.
According to Takashimaya Co. (8233) data, sales of bags unable to accommodate A4 documents increased 9% in January and February. Smaller bags once constituted about a tenth of all the bags the store carried. Starting this spring, the store will expand that to 20-30%.
At the Seibu department store in Ikebukuro, small bags made of cloth or vinyl, which can be folded, are selling briskly. "These are for safekeeping in your handbag for when you have to carry something larger," said a sales manager. "Smaller bags are cuter and more fashionable," said an editor at Oggi, a women's magazine published by Shogakukan Inc.
"High-end brands are more affordable when the bags are smaller," said Yoshiko Yamada of Itochu Fashion System Co. Smaller bags determine the size of the things carried within them and so inform consumer choice.
Folding wallets about the size of a business card, and much smaller than long wallets, are selling well. At Sogo and Seibu Co., January-February sales of folding wallets rose 15% from a year earlier, while the Tokyu department store in Shibuya saw a 30% increase.
Companies are restricting employees from carrying documents outside the workplace to clamp down on information leaks. Many employees complain that the restriction is a huge inconvenience. But women have taken advantage of the situation to have some fun.
Source:The Nikkei March 10,2011
TOKYO (NQN)--The number of corporate bankruptcies involving debts of at least 10 million yen fell for the 19th straight month in February, down 9.4% on the year to 987, Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. said Tuesday.
It said the drop was due to governmental measures to ease financing for small and midsize firms.
Hayashibara filed for court protectionThe figure last fell below 1,000 on a monthly basis in September 2005. It includes firms that have been cut off by their banks.
The total liabilities fell 6.5% to 410.18 billion yen, down for the fourth consecutive month. While Okayama-based biotechnology firm Hayashibara Co., which has filed for court protection from creditors, booked a large quantity of debts, totaling 131.8 billion yen, February generally saw small-scale bankruptcies, due mainly to slow sales.
There were no bankruptcies among listed firms.
Souce:The Nikkei March 8,2011
Expensive mayonnaise, ketchup big sellers at Daylesford Organics' first Japan location At left, Daylesford Organic's first Japan outlet, in Tokyo's Aoyama district, sells fresh produce, deli selections and bread on the first floor.
Since November, when Daylesford Organic Ltd. - a small, specialty food store chain from the U.K. - opened its first boutique in Japan, in Tokyo's trendy Aoyama district, it has been attracting visitors from as far away as Hokkaido. They come for its wide range of organic edibles - perishables, processed foods and seasonings.
While a comprehensive lineup of organic fare is still rare in Japan, Daylesford Organic has a few other things going for it as well: Its swanky premises also house a restaurant and cafe, and its interior ambience hearkens to the English countryside.
An organic grocery store and deli occupy the first floor, while a restaurant takes up the second story.
Using stone and wooden materials imported from the England's Cotswolds region, where Daylesford Organic was founded, the store exudes the same charm of a country farmhouse.
Daylesford Organic, which started out as a vast farm, began producing organic vegetables, fruits and meats in the 1970s. Later, it started selling its fresh delectables as well as processed foods at a store right on the farm. Currently, it operates eight stores: four in the U.K., one in Germany, two in South Korea and the new one in Japan.
The Japanese outlet is managed by Daylesford Organic Japan Co., established by food importer Kataoka & Co. via a franchise agreement with the U.K. firm. Daylesford Japan chose the fashionable Aoyama area for its first store "to propagate the great taste of organic food," according to Masahiro Ito, who heads the Japanese unit.
The restaurant has a total of 50 seats, including a private room that can accommodate six. It uses chicken produced in Ibaraki Prefecture and beef from Aomori Prefecture. The most popular lunch item, the Organic Lunch Platter, goes for 1,800 yen ($22). It also offers a vegetarian menu for the same price during lunch hours.
In January, the restaurant started a 3,800 yen lunch course. In the evening, it serves three types of courses that range in price from 3,800 yen to 7,000 yen. On the first-floor, foods served at the restaurant are available at the Delicatessen & Cafe corner. There is also a bakery that provides 18 types of bread and three kinds of scones.
In mayonnaise-crazy Japan, it should be no surprise that the condiment is one of the grocery store's hottest sellers. A 1,575 yen, 200-gram jar of the stuff is made of simple ingredients - eggs, apple vinegar and oil. Organic ketchup (1,890 yen for 500ml) is another hot seller. The groceries are not inexpensive. But "a lot of diners who savored our delicious organic dishes at the restaurant buy ingredients at the shop before leaving," Ito said.
The Tokyo Daylesford also offers products unique to the Japanese location. The Tasting Deli Box is an assortment of nine kinds of prepared foods. The store has also made a few alterations. The restaurant's 1,600 yen Burger Platter has a smaller hamburger than that served in the U.K. And on the first floor, the loaves of bread are smaller than they are in that other archipelago.
A near-term challenge facing Daylesford Japan lies in procuring a wide assortment of organics foods. The company imports most of its processed foods from the U.K. but needs to procure perishables on its own. It has been able to purchase chicken and beef from domestic producers but could not procure pork domestically. Its pork comes from the U.S. "Notably," Ito said, "Japan's output of (organic) livestock products is small."
Some customers who have been to Daylesford stores in the U.K. have requested the Japanese outlet to broaden its lineup of dairy products, especially cheese and yogurt. But "we can only procure small quantities of (organic) milk, which is expensive," Ito said. "So it's difficult to process dairy products." For the time being, Daylesford Japan imports cheddar produced at the Daylesford farm in the U.K. Some shoppers come a long way, lured by all those organic goodies. But it's a burden for a long-distance shopper to haul heavy bottles of condiments all the way to Hokkaido. So in late January, Daylesford Japan took its store online at (www.daylesford.jp/). The company also plans to open additional shops during the next five years.
Source:The Nikkei weekly ,March 7, 2011
Department store operator uses team of female college students to promote new section in Kobe With some help from a squad of female collegians, J.Front Retailing Co.'s Daimaru Kobe department store underwent the ufufu treatment in late February.
In other words, a remodeled fashion floor opened under a brand name the company is working to spread groupwide: ufufu girls.
Ufufu, by the way, means "giggling" in Japanese.
J.Front has been remodeling its stores, including Osaka's Daimaru Shinsaibashi, and giving ufufu girls a starring role.
To market the new section, the company hired a public relations team of college women through an event-management firm, resulting in a break with its standard promotional strategies. Dubbed the ufufu girls Kobe supporters, the team's first step was to post information about the floor on the mixi social networking site in early February. In the middle of the month, they started handing out fliers.
J.Front hopes this customer-oriented, word-of-mouth approach will garner more attention than the one-way information the store has traditionally provided.
Buses wrapped with ads featuring the pink ufufu girls logo made the rounds of Kobe's universities, as well as the venue of the Kobe Collection — a fashion event held in the city on Feb. 26. When the buses stopped, the supporters handed out fliers to passersby. The supporters also offered advice to Daimaru Kobe's management on advertising tactics and the decor of the ufufu girls floor.
In addition to helping to promote the new section, the ufufu girls Kobe supporters assisted Daimaru Kobe's management in planning its decor.
The section is targeted at women in the 18-34 age group. The ufufu girls theme dominates half of the building's 4,000-sq.-meter third floor, which also features a new Plaza beauty shop and the first turno jeana outlet in the Kansai region, around Osaka. A gelato shop stands next to a rest area, and a dressing room is equipped with special outlets for hair-care appliances.
J.Front has ufufu girls sections at some of its other department stores, but they have been set up individually. The firm is now striving to link them together through branding, using video and the like. Climate change
As for the supporters, the company plans to keep them on its payroll for about six months from late February.
For Daimaru Kobe, the remodeling is a vital effort to hone its edge. Starting this spring, new department stores will be opening and older ones expanding in Osaka's Umeda district. In recent years, suburban outlet malls have expanded and new shopping centers have opened. Competition is only intensifying.
In the ufufu girls section, an electronic bulletin board with a touch screen carries news items about the store and local weather, with a stylish and handsome male presenter announcing the time.
J.Front hopes these features will encourage customers who come for ufufu girls to explore the rest of Daimaru Kobe.
The key to success is obviously luring more young women, who are voracious consumers - not to mention the next generation of core department store customers. Of the roughly half-million Daimaru Kobe customers with known attributes, 20% are women 18-34, and their share of sales is just 15%.
"They may buy cosmetics and sweets in our store," a sales promotion manager said, "but they tend to go to the nearby Opa store or boutiques for higher-ticket items." J.Front has been remodeling its main department stores, including the Daimaru Shinsaibashi store in Osaka and the Matsuzakaya Ginza outlet in Tokyo. The changes at Daimaru Kobe likely presage a coming spring remodeling of the Matsuzakaya Nagoya store, the firm's largest facility.
Source:The Nikkei weekly ,March 7, 2011
The Office of Commercial Affairs, Royal Thai Embassy in Tokyo, Japan
Source : http://www.depthai.go.th