Yakuza Arrested for 2006 Omote Sando Real Estate Exec Slaying

http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2011/10/26/yamaguchi-gumi-offices-raided-over-2006-aoyama-killing-one-gangster-arrested/

Anti-Yakuza Laws Begin to Bite II- No Life Insurance

Life insurance companies will include a provisional clause in their guidelines which allows them to deny coverage to the yakuza, Japan’s organized crime groups, according to life insurance industry officials.

The Japanese insurers will need approval for the provision by Japan’s Financial Service Agency (FSA), which they are expected to receive. Once the provision is approved, it will be implemented immediately.
The clause will allow insurance companies to cancel payments for injuries or death if the person is a member of a crime group. In other words, the insurer will have the right to refuse to cover anyone who belongs to a gang, which is involved in fraud or other criminal activities. They could even refuse to cover a person with a tattoo that is recognized as a symbol of gang membership.

Additionally, they can also deny or cancel a policy if it is learned that the person has provided false information about being a gang member.

In the past, if a person who was a gang member signed a contract with an insurance company, the company would be obligated to pay.

About 45 major life insurance companies who belong to the Life Insurance Association in Tokyo created the provision to deny life coverage to members of crime groups. They describe these groups as anti-social elements of society.

Once approved, each company will implement the provision, allowing companies to refuse payment or unconditionally cancel an individual’s policy.

In addition, insurance policy holders or beneficiaries will not be able to collect life insurance if it is learned that they are involved in organized crime.


http://www.majiroxnews.com/2011/10/26/no-life-insurance-for-yakuza/

Anti-Yakuza Laws Begin to Bite - Printers no longer printing business cards

http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2011/10/27/printers-in-hyogo-break-off-relations-with-gangsters-refuse-to-print-business-cards/

2010 - Population Marks slowest growth ever

Japan's population stood at 128,057,352 as of Oct. 1, 2010, up 0.2 percent from five years earlier, marking the slowest growth since the once-in-five-years census began in 1920, the final results of the survey showed Wednesday.

When non-Japanese residents are excluded, the population dropped by about 371,000, or 0.3 percent, decreasing for the first time since 1975, when it began compiling the population of Japanese citizens separately from non-Japanese, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said.

"While Japan has entered an era of population decline, its total population has been flat because of an increase in foreign nationals," a ministry official said.

The number of non-Japanese residents rose 5.9 percent, or about 93,000.

Japan remains the 10th most populous nation, accounting for 1.9 percent of the world's population, according to a U.N. population estimate for 2010.

The male population stood at 62,327,737, while the female population came to 65,729,615.

Those aged 65 or older numbered about 29,246,000, accounting for 23.0 percent of the total population, up from 20.2 percent in the previous census. The country's graying trend stayed at the top level in the world, surpassing Germany and Italy.

In contrast, those below 15 accounted for 13.2 percent of the population, down 0.6 percentage point, confirming that the population of the young is shrinking as the country grays rapidly.

The number of households rose 4.8 percent from 2005 to 51,950,504, topping the 50 million mark for the first time ever, but the average number of members per household hit an all-time low of 2.42, the report showed.

The number of single-member households stood at around 16,785,000, comprising more than 30 percent of the total households for the first time.

Of Japan's 47 prefectures, population increased only in nine -- including Tokyo and Okinawa -- while it declined in the rest. Six prefectures -- Tochigi, Shizuoka, Mie, Kyoto, Hyogo and Okayama -- saw their population growth turn negative.

At the municipal level, population decreased in 1,321 cities, towns and villages, or 76.4 percent of all the country's municipalities.


http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111027p2g00m0dm003000c.html

H1 2011/12 (April - Sept) - First Trade Deficit since Lehman Shock as 3/11 EQ Impacts Exports

 Japan registered a 1.67 trillion yen trade deficit during the first half of fiscal 2011 as exports fell sharply due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, according to data released Monday by the Finance Ministry.
The nation's trade balance fell into the red for the first time since the second half of fiscal 2008, when the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. of the United States triggered the global economic downturn.

The 1.67 trillion yen deficit in the April-September period is the second-largest on record, after the 2.35 trillion yen deficit registered during the second half of fiscal 1979 when crude oil prices soared in the wake of the second oil crisis.

Exports of automobiles and semiconductors plunged after the March 11 quake, while imports of liquefied natural gas and other fuels increased as the electricity industry relied more on thermal power generation due to the suspension of many nuclear power plants after the quake.

Overall, exports dropped 3.8 percent from a year earlier to 32.81 trillion yen. The automobile industry slumped 18.4 percent over the period, although its exports did increase in August and September from a year earlier.

Exports of semiconductors and other electronic components declined 15.8 percent, due to a sluggish market and the aftereffects of the March quake.

In contrast, imports expanded 12.1 percent to 34.48 trillion yen. LNG and crude oil imports increased 40.3 percent and 24.9 percent, respectively, as a result of stronger demand.

Higher prices for natural resources also contributed to the increase.

The September trade balance recorded a surplus of 300.4 billion yen, moving into the black for the first time since July. Exports increased 2.4 percent from a year earlier to 5.98 trillion yen, while imports grew 12.1 percent to 5.68 trillion yen.

However, the trade surplus decreased 61.2 percent from a year earlier with growth in imports exceeding that in exports.


http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T111024003843.htm

Financial Firms and Brokers Cutting Staff

Major domestic securities firms as well as overseas brokerages with operations in Japan are all cutting back because of dropping profitability due to the worldwide constriction of the stock and bond markets. The waning investment activity has resulted in foreign firms shrugging off the high yen and seeking easier markets, forcing security companies across the board to cut employment.

Mitsubishi YFJ Morgan Stanley Securities will let go of about 20% of its employees in October as “early retirement.” This follows a similar cutback in February of this year. This means that somewhere between 1,200 and 1,300 employees will leave the company.

Mizuho, Merrill Lynch and UBS AG are also all cutting back.

“We’ve noticed a recent increase in the number of candidates from these firms who have placed their resumes on some of the job boards that recruiting firms use,” said Joe Peters, a Tokyo-based recruiter and managing director of an executive search firm.

Some firms have also begun to close down branch offices. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley, which by May of 2010 had already reduced its number of branches from 103 to 75, is looking to close another 5 to 10 locations.

At the same time, Japanese and foreign firms continue to move Asian area operations out of Japan to locations with greater growth potential.


http://www.majiroxnews.com/2011/10/17/global-downturn-means-brokers-in-japan-cutting-workforce/

Electronics Makers Slashing Jobs, Closing Plants

Panasonic closing TV Plasma plant and losing 1000 jobs in Amagasaki and looking to sell LCD plant in Mobara
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8363070/panasonic-to-trim-tv-side-cut-1000-jobs-report

Sanyo slashing 800 jobs in Gunma from industrial a/c plant
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20111020a4.html

Olympus Pays Huge Advisory Fees for M&As

In what is becoming a major scandal for Oympus - the company confirmed it paid over $600m in advisory fees for an $2bn acquisition to an unknown advisor registered in a tax haven

The foreign CEO has been fired after asking the Board to step down for sanctioning the deal; and there have been threats of legal action

Olympus's share price has fallen 44% since the scandal broke

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111019/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_olympus

April - Sept - Disney Customers 17% down

The combined number of visitors to Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea in the April-September period dived 17.1 percent from a year earlier to 10.74 million, the sharpest fall on a half-year basis since Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, the operator of the theme parks said Monday.

But the number of visitors in the July-September period was the highest on record for the three-month period, Oriental Land Co. said.

It attributed the plunge for the six months to September to the theme parks' temporary closure following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The number of visitors for the six-month period was the smallest since the year from April 2002, just after DisneySea's opening in September 2001.

Oriental Land attributed the strong recovery in visitors in the July-September period to the nightly Fantasmic! attraction on the waters of the Mediterranean Harbor area of DisneySea, introduced this spring, which proved to be a megahit.

The number of visitor "is now on track to recovery," an Oriental Land official said.

The company did not release a projection for the number of visitors for the entire financial year to next March on the grounds that it is necessary to continue monitoring the impact from the March 11 calamity.

Luxury Market Grows for 1st time in 4 years

Japan's luxury market is set to grow for the first time in four years as status-conscious consumers help rebuild the economy, encouraging expansion by Gianni Versace SpA and Mulberry Group PLC.

Sales of luxury goods here may rise 2 percent in 2011, following a contraction that started in 2007 and wiped 14 percent off the industry's value, Bain & Co. estimates.

Confidence is returning after the March disasters. As growth resumes, deflation ends and tourists visit from China, Japan is drawing investment from companies including Mulberry, the British maker of ¥485,000 Bayswater bags. Versace returned this year after closing its Japan operations in 2009.

"Consumers are back in stores," said Claudia D'Arpizio, a Milan-based partner at Bain. "Japan is still a market where you need to be present because it's a big chunk of the pie and also because the young generation are becoming more and more trendsetters."

Renewed optimism in Japan, boosted by reconstruction after March 11, and a desire to control distribution is spurring investment. Cavalli Group, the Italian fashion house known for its animal-print clothing, opened its first directly operated store in Tokyo last month.

Mulberry is close to signing a distribution deal in Japan with a joint venture owned by Club 21 and a subsidiary of Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. The 10-year accord anticipates the opening of multiple shop-in-shops within the IMH network as well as new flagship stores in Tokyo and Osaka, Mulberry said at the beginning of October.

Luxury is almost a mass-market business in Japan with a large consumer base that is more value conscious than in other countries, D'Arpizio said. Direct distribution allows companies to control pricing and target customer groups, she said.

Mainstream consumers shelled out 26 percent more on luxury clothes and accessories in the first half, according to American Express Business Insights. By comparison, shoppers that make up the top 5 percent of annual purchases in Japan cut spending by 22 percent in the period, the researcher said Sept. 20.

"I buy whatever I want even right after the March 11" quake, said Kumiko Tominaga, a 42-year-old working at her family's business who bought a Cartier bracelet for ¥800,000.

Almost 50 percent of all Japanese women over 20 own a Vuitton handbag, MF Global estimates.

Japan's share of worldwide sales of items like sapphire and diamond necklaces and calf leather handbags retreated to 11 percent in 2010 from 12 percent a year earlier, while demand surged by a third in China, Bain estimates. Japan's luxury market will reach about ¥1.9 billion, or 10 percent of the total, this year, according to the consultant.

Greater China is set to replace Japan this year as the second-largest market for luxury goods behind the U.S., rising to ¥2.4 billion, according to Bain. Chinese tourism into Japan is helping to boost growth.

"We see Chinese shoppers going to Japan, mainly in Tokyo in the Ginza area," said Alexis Babeau, deputy chief executive officer of PPR SA's luxury division. Chinese consumers spent as much as $20.6 billion on luxury goods outside their home market, according to Bain.

Tourists from mainland China "will continue to be a major contributor to retail sales in the Asia region," HSBC analysts including Erwan Rambourg said in a report this month. "These 'walking ATMs' are spreading across the region."

Worldwide spending on luxury goods may rise 10 percent this year before slowing to a "solid single-digit" percentage increase in 2012, Bain estimates. Global sales reached $238 billion in 2010, according to the consultant.

After more than 20 years of growth fueled by status-seeking and the perceived need to fit in, Japan's luxury market lost its luster in the last decade. Consumers curbed spending on products as they got older, the young rejected the global brands worn by their parents and prices, which were once as much as three times higher than in Europe, stayed the same or fell.

Japan's economy may expand 2.5 percent in 2012 after contracting this year, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Unemployment is expected to be 4.4 percent, about half the rate in the U.S. and eurozone.

Even before the earthquake, which forced some luxury companies to close stores in Tokyo for more than 10 days, there were signs that Japanese demand was stabilizing.

Salvatore Ferragamo SpA has said its Japanese sales, which account for 13 percent of the shoemaker's total, were growing in the first quarter until the earthquake struck. While the disaster caused a "significant" slowdown in sales in March as well as a store closure, revenue growth resumed in the three months through June, the Florence, Italy-based company, said.

Ferragamo's 1 percent increase in first-half sales in Japan was "better than expected," Chairman Ferruccio Ferragamo said. "The trend can continue."

PPR, owner of the Gucci and Bottega Veneta brands, has posted single-digit percentage revenue growth in Japan since May, Chairman and CEO Francois-Henri Pinault said in September. Cie Financiere Richemont SA reported a 7 percent increase in Japanese sales in the five months through August, which is "an encouraging trend seen in the broader luxury sector," according to Thomas Chauvet, an analyst at Citigroup Inc.

Burberry Group PLC said last week it sees no signs of a slowdown in any markets, echoing PPR and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the world's largest maker of luxury goods. LVMH, gets about 9 percent of sales in Japan.

The Tobu department store in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, sold timepieces priced between ¥2 million and ¥3 million during an August promotion that generated sales of more than ¥500 million in a week, according to managing director Keiji Hashimoto. Though that was more than last year's campaign, "we didn't see customers who bought a ¥10 million watch," he said.

Masako Ide was shopping for Louis Vuitton in Ikebukuro after shunning purchases in the weeks after the earthquake and tsunami.

"I'm still very cost-conscious and select luxuries carefully," said the 52-year-old, who had already bought Gucci and Coach handbags at a discount outlet. "I want to buy more, but it may lead to the bankruptcy of my family."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20111019n2.html

July 1 - Land Prices Continue to Decline

The land, infrastructure and transport ministry has found that as of July 1, the nationwide average residential land prices went down 3.2 percent from a year before — the 20th straight annual drop — and average prices for commercial areas fell 4 percent — the fourth straight decrease. The trend points to the effects of deflation, although the rate of decrease in land prices in the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya areas narrowed. The effects of the March 11 quake and tsunami were also large.

The ministry said that the disasters' effects offset the effects of tax reduction measures for households paying housing loans. It also said that high vacancy rates in office buildings and postdisaster decreases in sales at shops caused land prices to fall.

The effects of the disasters and the nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are clear in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. The land price surveys had to be given up at 93 points in these disaster-hit prefectures, 50 of them inside evacuation zones in Fukushima Prefecture set up after the nuclear accidents.

In Fukushima Prefecture, residential land prices fell 5.4 percent and commercial land prices 7.5 percent on average. Respective rates of decrease were 2.3 and 2.9 percentage points bigger than a year before. These figures show what effect the nuclear fiasco has had on land prices in the prefecture. The government needs to earnestly tackle the tasks of bringing the nuclear accidents under control and of decontaminating areas affected by radioactive substances from the power plant.

The land price for a spa in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, dropped 15 percent, the largest drop in commercial areas across Japan, due to a sharp decrease in the number of tourists visiting there after the nuclear accidents.

Land prices for a residential area in Rikuzen Takada, Iwate Prefecture, fell as much as 16 percent. Safe and commercially vibrant communities must be built in the disaster-hit areas. Moving residences to highlands may be necessary. In some parts of western Japan, land prices fell more than a year before because of fear of possible major earthquakes. Both the central and local governments need to move up sufficient preparations against such quakes even outside the Tohoku region.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20110930a2.html?

September Cabinet Report downgrades outlook

The government gave the economy its first downgrade in six months Monday as the slowdown in overseas economies continued to weigh on industrial production and exports last month.

"The Japanese economy is still picking up although the pace has decelerated, while difficulties continue to prevail due to the Great East Japan Earthquake," the Cabinet Office said in its October report.

The September report did not mention that the recovery was slowing.

Production and exports were also downgraded, with the report saying that the recovery in production is decelerating and that exports are leveling off.

The Cabinet Office's report said economic conditions abroad overshadowed the two components.

It also touched on the need to pay attention to the yen's persistent strength, which is generally unfavorable for exporters as it erodes the value of their earnings when repatriated.

"The global financial markets, the European economy (struggling under the sovereign debt crisis) and Japan's exports have shown a downturn larger than expected in these two months," a government official said, explaining why the overall assessment was downgraded just two months after upgrading it.

Automakers responded firmly to demand they couldn't meet when the nationwide supply chain was disrupted by the March 11 disasters, but such products as semiconductors did not see exports grow as expected, the official said.

The report, meanwhile, was more upbeat in assessing such components as public investment and employment.

The report said that public investment has been "holding steady recently," partly supported by demand for rebuilding the disaster zone. In the previous month, investment was seen as basically sluggish.

In its evaluation of overseas economies, the government maintained for the second consecutive month its view that the recovery of the global economy is "weakening as a whole."

"The U.S. economy is extremely weak and the pace of recovery in Europe is becoming slow. As for the outlook, it is expected that a weak recovery will continue, but there are risks that economic conditions will take a downturn."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20111018a2.html

Reconstruction Taxes to impose heavy burden

Families headed by salaried workers will lose as much as ¥600,000 in take-home income in 2013, when the government raises taxes to fund disaster reconstruction and hikes pension premiums, estimates by a private research agency show.

A family with a gross annual income of ¥4 million will see ¥132,900 less in take-home income, the Daiwa Institute of Research said.

But a family that is generating an income of ¥8 million a year will receive ¥151,500 less.

Meanwhile, families with an income of ¥10 million could see take-home pay fall by ¥407,700 per year, while a family earning ¥20 million will get ¥601,100 less, the institute said.

In addition to tax hikes and pension charges, the calculation includes reductions in child allowances being given to families with a wage earner, spouse and two elementary-school-aged children.

But the drop will be bigger for wealthier households, especially because those who make more than ¥9.6 million a year will not be eligible for child allowances starting in June 2012.

The calculations, however, do account for a possible jump in the consumption tax, which is being discussed as part of integrated reforms to the tax and social security systems.

According to separate projections worked out by Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, should the consumption tax be hiked to 8 percent from the current 5 percent, a family of four with two children and an annual income of ¥4 million would pay about ¥71,000 more per year in taxes alone, and a similar household earning ¥8 million would have to shell out an additional ¥117,000.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20111017a1.html

Japan Cayman Tax Treaty Comes into effect 13 Nov

A tax information exchange treaty between Japan and the Cayman Islands will come into effect Nov. 13 due to the completion of necessary domestic procedures by the two governments, the Foreign Ministry said.

The treaty was signed Feb. 7 to prevent international tax evasion between Japan and the Cayman Islands.

The British territory in the Caribbean is the fourth tax haven that Japan has concluded such a treaty with after Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Isle of Man.

Enhancing information exchange on taxes has emerged as an important international issue in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20111019a5.html