Orient Corp., the Japanese consumer credit firm being probed for lending to crime groups with Mizuho Financial Group Inc., said it’s cooperating with police to prosecute gangsters who obtained loans fraudulently, Bloomberg reported. The company is in talks with lawyers to consider action against borrowers who signed 37 loan contracts by falsely declaring they have no mob ties, Orient said in a statement on its website yesterday. It is seeking to cancel the transactions.

Stimulus vs. debt reduction. That big question has tormented advanced economies in recent years, as they juggle attempts to lift sluggish growth with curbing unsustainable borrowing. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week will try to have it both ways, The Wall Street Journal reported. Brushing off warnings that Japan's nascent economic recovery, stirred by his own package of bold stimulus policies, is still too delicate to withstand austerity measures, Mr.

Japan is on a roll. Its economy is growing at a robust 3.8 percent, the stock market is up by 40 percent this year, and the country is on the cusp of overcoming 15 years of deflation. Adding to the positive trend, Tokyo just won its bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics, raising hopes of an investment and construction boom, the International Herald Tribune reported. What could possibly go wrong? A plan to raise taxes at the worst conceivable moment, economists warned. “It’s nonsense.

Japan is considering a reduction in corporate income taxes as part of a stimulus package to cushion the economy from the planned increase in the sales levy, according to three people briefed on the matter, Bloomberg reported. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has instructed officials to discuss a cut in the tax on company profits as he weighs whether to proceed with an increase in the consumption levy in April, according to the people, who asked not to be named as the discussions aren’t public.

Don't expect the Bank of Japan to come to the rescue if the sales-tax tussle triggers financial-market turmoil, people familiar with the bank's thinking say, The Wall Street Journal reported. Debate over the plan to double the sales tax in two stages starting in April has heated up over the past six weeks. Some advisers to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have called for him to postpone or moderate the increase, arguing that a higher tax burden would damp consumer spending and threaten economic recovery.

The International Monetary Fund on Monday made a fresh call on Japan's government to bring its flow of red ink under control, saying the central bank's monetary easing could backfire if investors believe it is "monetizing" the growing mountain of government debt, a step that often leads to financial turmoil. The IMF has recently hardened its rhetoric toward Japan, suggesting the rest of the world is worried that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet appears divided over whether to stick to a plan to raise its sales tax from next April.

Takeshi Fujimaki, a former adviser to billionaire investor George Soros who won a seat in Japan’s upper house of parliament last month, said a delay in increasing the sales tax and reduction of Federal Reserve stimulus could cause the nation’s government bond “bubble” to burst, Bloomberg reported. Japan’s public debt, the highest ratio globally, may balloon to 245 percent of gross domestic product this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. is having difficulty sticking to its 10-year restructuring plan as its nuclear reactors remain idle, a key member of a government-backed fund providing financial assistance to Tepco said Thursday, The Japan Times reported. “Because the restarting of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is falling further behind schedule, it is a fact that differences between the business plan (and the current situation) are widening,” Yoshiharu Kawabata told reporters, referring to the complex in Niigata Prefecture, the biggest of Tepco’s three nuclear plants.

Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda gave a positive assessment of the effects of the unprecedented monetary stimulus the central bank rolled out in April, saying Japan's economy is on track to exit 15 years of declining prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. Little less than four months after the BOJ opened the monetary floodgates, Mr. Kuroda said Monday the step has had positive effects on financial markets and corporate finance, as well as expectations for further improvements in the economy and prices.

Japan's remarkable economic rebound is likely to give Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a landslide victory in Sunday's elections, but that growth is expected to fizzle within a year or two, unless Abe uses his momentum from that win to accelerate policy changes, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Economists are already projecting a big drop in growth as early as next year, citing everything from Japan's stubbornly depressed wages and slow business investment to a plunge in the amount of government spending that is expected to flow through the economy.