Japan

Fitch Ratings lowered Japan’s credit rating as the country continued to wrestle with staggering debt, the International New York Times reported. The rating agency said Monday that the government did not include sufficient measures in its budget to replace a sales tax increase it delayed in the current fiscal year, which ends next March. Japan’s debt, more than twice the size of its economy, is the largest among developed nations. The country has struggled to find a way to cover rising costs for health and elder care.

ANA Holdings Inc said it has agreed to acquire a stake of up to 19.9 percent in bankrupt budget carrier Skymark Airlines Inc, gaining access to highly coveted landing slots and strengthening its lead over rival Japan Airlines Co., Reuters reported. Under the deal, Japanese private equity firm Integral Corp, which has provided funds to keep Skymark in business since its bankruptcy in January, will hold just over 50 percent. An ambitious expansion programme, including plans to fly Airbus A380 superjumbos on overseas routes, stretched Skymark's finances, leaving it vulnerable to competition.

The Bank of Japan stuck with its monetary stimulus program on Wednesday, brushing off a lack of inflation two years after it vowed to pull the economy out of more than a decade of falling prices, the International New York Times reported. As its initial deadline for stoking inflation passed, the central bank maintained that consumer prices were temporarily depressed by cheaper oil, and would gradually rise as consumers and businesses spent more and the economy recovered further.

Japan’s drift back toward deflation, two years after launching a radical monetary policy experiment to cure the affliction, underscores the continuing difficulties in pulling the world’s third-largest economy out of its long slump, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government said Friday its most closely watched price gauge was flat in February from a year earlier, far below the 2% target that the central bank had aimed to hit by this spring. It was the lowest level since May 2013 for the consumer price index, excluding fresh food prices and the effects of a tax increase.

The country’s savings rate, long one of the highest in the world, is now below zero. In short, Japan’s citizens are spending more than they earn, the International New York Times reported. By comparison, the rate in the United States, where consumers have a reputation for living beyond their means, is on the rise, hitting 5.5 percent in January. The reversal is stark. For decades, many Japanese hoarded cash, a habit that took hold in the years after World War II, when government protections like unemployment insurance and public pensions were scarce. Today, Japan is in a bind.

For most of her career, Mana Nakazora has taken a pre-dawn train to work regardless of whether she arrived home just hours earlier, Bloomberg News reported. Her colleagues describe BNP Paribas SA’s Tokyo head of investment research as a powerhouse, and she was Japan’s No. 1 bond picker from 2010 to 2012 and No. 2 for the last two years in Nikkei Veritas newspaper polls. Making it to the top in an industry whose corporate bond sales exceeded $70 billion last year can be tough.

Japan's biggest airline, ANA Holdings Inc, said it was considering injecting capital into Skymark Airlines Inc as part of a rehabilitation plan for the bankrupt domestic budget carrier, Reuters reported. Besides ANA, other investors have also expressed interest in participating in a rescue package for Skymark, according to media reports and sources. Skymark holds valuable slots at Tokyo's crowded Haneda airport, making it attractive to potential investors. Skymark last month sought protection from creditors, blaming a weak yen and a dispute with jet maker Airbus Group for its financial woes.

Japanese financial services provider Orix Corp has expressed interest in participating in the reconstruction of budget airline Skymark Airlines Inc, two people familiar with the situation said. Skymark, which filed for bankruptcy last month and agreed on a sponsorship deal with Tokyo-based fund Integral, is seeking co-sponsors to help it turn around its business, Reuters reported. Thursday was the deadline for non-aviation companies to submit expressions of interest. Airlines will have until Feb. 23.

Japan’s latest recession was as short as it was unexpected, the International New York Times reported. The Japanese economy, the world’s third-largest, started expanding again at the end of 2014, government data showed Monday, after a painful midyear slump that had raised doubts about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to rekindle growth and end entrenched deflation. The latest in what seem like countless Japanese downturns — there have been six since 1997 — lasted just two quarters, the shortest technical definition of a recession.

Japan's Skymark airlines, which last week filed for bankruptcy protection, will seek other sponsors alongside investment fund Integral Corp to help turn its business around, Skymark and Integral said on Thursday. Skymark filed for protection from creditors with total liabilities of 71.09 billion yen ($605.7 million). Integral has agreed to provide 9 billion yen to help keep the business going, said Nobuo Sayama, representative director of the fund.