Japan

Sushi is one of Japan’s most iconic cuisines with fans around the world, but in its home country restaurants are closing their business at the fastest pace since the Covid pandemic days in 2020, Bloomberg News reported. Rising material prices, staff shortages and reduction of Covid-era support measures have hit sushi joints in Japan. Five restaurants went bankrupt in Japan in January, the most in a month since August 2020, according to research firm Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd.

The seeds of former flight attendant Mitsuko Tottori's rise to the top of Japan Airlines (JAL) were planted in the aftermath of the carrier's bankruptcy more than a decade ago, Reuters reported. Tottori, who rose through the ranks from cabin crew to chief customer officer, takes over as president of JAL in April, becoming one of the few women to lead a major global airline. Qantas, opens new tab has a woman boss and KLM and Air France are led by women who report to a male group CEO.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda kept investors in the dark over when he will scrap the world’s last negative interest rate while leaving little doubt that a move is in the pipeline, Bloomberg News reported. The BOJ maintained its -0.1% short-term rate and kept its yield curve control parameters intact Tuesday. It also updated its price and growth forecasts with no overall change to the picture of an economy heading slowly toward its first rate hike since 2007.

One in six Japanese companies have become “zombie” firms unable to keep up with debt payments from profits alone, putting them in a vulnerable position should the central bank raise interest rates this year, as is widely expected, Bloomberg News reported. The number of zombie companies hit 251,000 or 17% of the total number in the 12 months to March, jumping almost a third from the previous year, according to a report by Teikoku Databank on Friday. The number was the highest since 2011, when Japan’s economy was battered by an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, the firm said.

Star Wars-inspired hoverbike maker A.L.I. Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy due to mounting research and development costs and slow adoption of the next-generation vehicles, Bloomberg News reported. The filing comes less than a year after parent Aerwins Technology Inc. debuted on the Nasdaq in one of the worst SPAC mergers of all time, prompting the startup to say it was at risk as a going concern.

Japan's factory activity contracted at the steepest pace in 10 months in December as output and new orders slid on market uncertainty, a private-sector survey showed on Thursday, Reuters reported. The final au Jibun Bank Japan manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) shrank to 47.9 in December from 48.3 in November. It was the weakest reading since the index hit 47.7 in February and stayed below the 50.0 threshold that separates growth from contraction for a seventh straight month.

Japan’s trucking industry is a crucial cog in one of the world’s largest economies, and it is the lifeblood of the Japanese culture of ultra-convenience. But it, and its drivers, are under immense strain, the New York Times reported. To improve job conditions and make the work more appealing, the government is moving to cap overtime for the first time next year, easing the punishing hours that have long defined trucking in Japan. Addressing that problem, however, will create others — potentially disrupting the nation’s entire logistics system.

The rise in Japan’s business service prices held steady at a three-decade high, in a development likely to fuel speculation that the Bank of Japan will inch its way toward normalizing policy in coming months, Bloomberg New reported. The country’s services producer price index, a gauge measuring the costs of a range of goods and services provided by businesses to other firms and government entities, rose 2.3% in November from a year earlier, the BOJ said Tuesday. It was the second month of 2.3% gains, the fastest since April 1992 when excluding periods when there were sales tax increases.

Major Japanese auto manufacturers will invest 150 billion baht ($4.34 billion) in Thailand over the next five years, a Thai government spokesperson said on Monday, supporting the Southeast Asian country's transition to making electric vehicles, Reuters reported. Toyota Motor and Honda Motor will invest about 50 billion baht each, while Isuzu Motors will invest 30 billion baht and Mitsubishi Motors 20 billion baht, spokesperson Chai Wacharoke said, adding this would include the production of electric pickup trucks. Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin concluded a trip to Japan last week.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda pointed out some positive potential aspects of having higher interest rates under normal economic conditions while also reiterating his pledge to continue with monetary easing patiently in the pursuit of stable inflation, Bloomberg News reported. “The most obvious benefit of a slightly positive inflation rate is larger room for monetary policy responses to an economic downturn,” Ueda said in a speech Monday at a conference hosted by the Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby, in Tokyo.