Japan

A sleepy, former coal-mining town in northern Japan is taking unprecedented measures to combat its biggest challenge: a devastating shrinking of its population, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Since its peak in the post-war economic boom of the 1960s, the population of Yubari, a little more than an hour’s drive east of Sapporo on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, has declined by more than 90 percent to just 9,000 as older residents died and young people moved away to bigger cities. Ten years ago, it became Japan’s first municipality to declare bankruptcy.

The Bank of Japan plunged into an approach to monetary policy unseen in decades, introducing a target for 10-year interest rates in its latest bid to restart economic growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Japanese central bank, which has struggled for nearly two decades to bring about steady inflation, said Wednesday it wants to keep the yield on 10-year Japanese government bonds at zero, and will adjust the pace of its bond buying as needed to achieve that.

Shares in Takata fell 12 per cent on Tuesday as investors feared that a bankruptcy option could be part of the restructuring package being compiled for the Japanese manufacturer at the centre of a global safety scandal, the Financial Times reported. The sharp sell-off on Tuesday followed a report by Bloomberg that several bidders for Takata have not ruled out some form of bankruptcy proceedings to mitigate the liabilities.

Japan’s central bank is reviewing its economic policies, asking why they have failed to kick-start growth, as intended. Its much-anticipated report is due on Wednesday, the International New York Times reported. One target is negative interest rates — an unconventional tactic adopted in Japan and Europe that turns the usual rules of borrowing and lending upside down. What are negative interest rates? Negative interest rates mean depositors pay money to save their money, a reversal of the normal rules of economics. In this case, the depositors are banks.

The world’s leading experiment in monetary easing is floundering, and its engineers are divided over how to get it on track, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Bank of Japan has tried radical measures for 3½ years to reflate the country’s sagging economy, resorting this year to negative interest rates. Growth and inflation remain elusive. Now the bank’s board, while still in favor of easing, has some members wanting to revise the methods for doing so—likely sparking uncertainty for economy-watchers and worries for investors.

Some analysts expect the Bank of Japan to fire another blast of monetary stimulus at the end of its two-day policy meeting on Sept. 21. Others see a central bank with little if any ammunition left -- or one turned gun-shy, Bloomberg News reported. For some economists, the BOJ’s decision to undertake a comprehensive review of its easing program to be concluded at the meeting underscored its struggle to hit the 2 percent inflation target, and bolstered arguments that it had reached the limits of its powers.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda signaled his readiness to ease monetary policy further using existing or new tools, shrugging off growing market concerns that the bank is reaching its limits after an already massive stimulus program, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. He also stressed the BOJ's comprehensive assessment of its policies later this month won't lead to a withdrawal of easing.

The Bank of Japan will likely take bold action next month, an adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, rejecting speculation that the central bank may use a coming policy review to justify a paring back of its stimulus, The Wall Street Journal reported. “However they conduct the assessment, there is already an answer: Monetary policy hasn’t been eased enough,” Etsuro Honda said of the review set for release at the central bank’s next policy meeting in September. Without further action, people would give up on the Abenomics drive to defeat deflation, he added.

As record numbers of elderly Japanese struggle with poverty, Yoshitsugu Shimizu’s life embodies a path that feeds widespread anxiety. The former leather-goods entrepreneur declared bankruptcy about a decade ago and later divorced. He now lives on welfare in a 55-square-foot room in the city’s Kotobukicho district, populated by cheap hostels and groups of old men socializing with drinks in hand. “I never imagined I’d be in this situation,” the 63-year-old said. Mr. Shimizu is among a growing number of older Japanese living in poverty.

Japanese growth is still sluggish. Consumers aren’t consuming much, and businesses aren’t investing. The government doesn't have many options to remedy this, and the Bank of Japan, which has sent both long-term and short-term interest rates into negative territory, has basically no more room to maneuver, Bloomberg News reported. The dreaded Zero Lower Bound is starting to bite. The BOJ is buying more stocks, but this too has its limits -- eventually companies become de facto nationalized, as the government becomes the majority shareholder.