Japan said it would allow short-term business travelers and foreign laborers to enter the country, responding to calls from companies that said they feared falling behind the West, the Wall Street Journal reported. The decision followed a sharp fall in new infections in Japan, which is reporting only a few hundred new Covid-19 cases a day. More than 70% of the population is fully vaccinated. The loosening up puts Japan closer to the rules in the U.S.

Japanese policymakers on Tuesday reaffirmed the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) commitment to its 2% inflation target in a meeting held between the central bank chief and the country's economy and finance ministers, Reuters reported. The Japanese government and the central bank also agreed to keep in close contact and cooperation, in line with commitments made in a 2013 joint statement, which also laid out the country's inflation target for the first time.

Japan Airlines on Tuesday forecast a net loss of 146 billion yen ($1.28 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 2022, as it struggles to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Nikkei Asia reported. JAL had refrained making a forecast for the current fiscal year until now, amid lingering uncertainties related to COVID-19. The company is now expected to have operating losses for a second consecutive fiscal year. The airline forecasts 766 billion yen in consolidated sales for the current fiscal year, up 59% from the previous year.

Japan's automobile sales slumped 31.3% in October from a year earlier to mark the fourth straight month of declines, industry data showed on Monday, a sign output cuts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were hurting the country's already weak consumption, Reuters reported. The domestic sales data is among few indicators available so far in gauging the strength of consumption since state of emergency curbs to combat the pandemic were lifted on Sept. 30. The sales slump highlights the widening damage of supply disruptions on the economy.

Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda said there is scant risk of the country’s inflation accelerating in the same way it has elsewhere in the world as he reinforced the message that stimulus will keep rolling in Tokyo even as other central banks pare theirs back, Bloomberg News reported. Inflation trends overseas and moves by the Federal Reserve and other monetary authorities won’t sway BOJ policy or soften the yen, Kuroda said at a press briefing after the central bank stood pat on policy and lowered its price and growth forecasts.

Japan finally has an inflation pulse and the gains are much stronger than they first appear, a factor that could start to influence speculation over the Bank of Japan’s policy path, Bloomberg News reported. While the first rise in key consumer prices in 18 months was just 0.1% in September, once the impact of slashed mobile phone fees is removed, core inflation is closer to 1.4%, according to a Bloomberg calculation. The sharp reductions in cellphone charges stem from a campaign of public pressure on mobile carriers to reduce fees by former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said the nation’s incoming government will seek a new type of capitalism that helps tackle wealth inequality, but on questions around the sales tax, debt and the central bank he sounded like the official he replaced a day earlier, Bloomberg News reported. “I’ll be seeking to bring about a new form of capitalism that creates a virtuous cycle of growth and wider wealth distribution,” Suzuki said at his inaugural press conference Tuesday, a day after succeeding long-serving finance chief Taro Aso.

Japan's business mood improved for a fifth straight quarter in September with manufacturers perking up on robust global demand, a central bank survey showed on Friday, boding well for the next administration's bid to pull the economy out of the doldrums, Reuters reported. Steady progress in vaccinations and hopes of a re-opening in economic activity also helped lift non-manufacturers' mood, the survey showed, underscoring the Bank of Japan's view an end to state of emergency curbs will prop up consumption.

Mizuho Financial Group's main banking arm said on Thursday a system glitch has been delaying some foreign exchange transactions, just a week after it was slapped with a regulatory punishment over system troubles earlier in the year, Reuters reported. Japan's third-largest lender has experienced a series of technical problems despite a $3.6 billion overhaul of its systems in 2019, prompting the Financial Services Agency (FSA) to become more involved in inspections of its computer system, an unusual move for the banking regulator.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda played down the risk of a crisis from the troubles in China’s real estate market that have been exposed by the downfall of developer China Evergrande Group, Bloomberg News reported. “China’s real-estate problem is somewhat different from the problem we faced” in Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kuroda said in a virtual panel discussion at a forum hosted by the European Central Bank Wednesday. “Extremely speculative investment in the real estate market does not appear to be the case in the Chinese case,” he said.