10 million Facebook Users in Japan - 10% penetration

Facebook is 10 million monthly active users strong in Japan, the company announced today at a marketing conference in Tokyo.

This figure indicates Facebook has about 10 percent penetration among Japanese Internet users and is quickly gaining on Mixi, Japan’s most popular social network. Mixi reported in February that it has 15.2 million monthly active users.

Japan is one of the few countries where Facebook has lower than 20 percent penetration. Russia and South Korea are others, as well as China where Facebook is banned. But Facebook is growing rapidly in Japan. The latest MAU figures are double the 5 million the social network reported in September 2011.

Facebook got serious about Japan in 2010, and developed a number of initiatives to increase usage there. The social network began to let users syndicate their Facebook posts on Mixi. It created a job search app for university students. And it prompted users to complete “missions” to fill out their profiles. Judging from a graph shown at fMC Tokyo, Facebook had about 1 million MAU at the start of 2010 and 2 million in 2011.

Also at the conference, Facebook introduced Timeline for pages and new premium ad products as it did in New York last month. The company has a final fMC planned for London at the end of March.



http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/03/16/facebook-reaches-10m-in-japan-doubled-users-in-6-months/

Japan Demographic in sweet spot for housing loans

Japan’s shrinking economy is poised to get a lift from the children of baby boomers taking out their first mortgages with rates close to a three-year low.

As many as 19.1 million people, or 15 percent of the Japanese population, are in the 35 to 39 and 40 to 44 year-old age groups, the second- and third-largest, government data show. Combined, the two groups are roughly double the size of the postwar baby boom generation now in their early 60s, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

“Japan is in a demographic sweet spot,” said Jesper Koll, head of equity research at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “Children of baby boomers are now at their late 30s and early 40s. That is where the demand is going to be coming from.”

So-called echo baby boomers reaching the age to purchase their first home will give a boost to a housing market that accounts for about 15 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product at a time when the nation is struggling to recover from last year’s earthquake, some companies are suffering from worse-than- expected earnings results, pushing up the unemployment rate.

The Bank of Japan has maintained rates near zero for 17 years, benefiting home buyers, who are enjoying one of the lowest financing costs in the world.

The 10-year fixed-mortgage rate has declined to 3.65 percent at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., a unit of Japan’s biggest listed bank, compared with 4.1 percent a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The country’s home loan costs may decline further as the benchmark bond yield stays around 1 percent. It was 1.1 percent on March 16 after closing the year below 1 percent on Dec. 30 for the first time since 2002.

“Japanese banks are sitting on a lot of cash because of the Bank of Japan’s monetary easing policy and the yield has declined,” said Yoji Otani, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in Tokyo, who forecasts a 4 percent increase in housing starts for the year ending March. “The housing market is quite strong because the bond yields remain low and the Japanese government provides housing incentives such as tax breaks.”

Japan’s housing starts rose for a second year in 2011, gaining 2.6 percent to 834,117 units, according to the land ministry. The gain in housing starts has boosted mortgage sales for the first time since at least 2007, according to a report from Credit Suisse Group AG. They surged 44 percent to 2.61 trillion yen in 2011 after the government introduced fixed-rate mortgages, the Zurich-based lender said.

Housing starts gained to the third highest level in history in 1987 when the baby boomers, those born from 1947 to 1949, reached the age to buy their first home, government data showed. The age of home buyers who are between 35 and 39 and in their 40s represents a market share of 44 percent, according to a survey by Recruit Co., a Tokyo-based human resources and information service provider.
About 86 percent of Japanese own their own home, based on a survey of 7,145 people nationwide, conducted last year by Zentakuren, a real estate foundation.

The central bank indicated on March 13 that it will keep using monetary policy to tackle deflation.
The BOJ unexpectedly added 10 trillion yen ($121 billion) to an asset-purchase program and set an inflation goal on Feb. 14 in a bid to revive the economy.

About 20,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The unemployment rate rose to 4.6 in January from a three-year low of 4.1 percent in September. BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Feb. 6 the nation’s economic condition is “severe” because of deflation and the strong yen.

Japan’s economy contracted less than the government’s initial estimate last quarter, shrinking an annualized 0.7 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31, the Cabinet Office said on March 8, compared with a preliminary estimate of a 2.3 percent contraction.

The government has introduced tax breaks and low interest rate policies in a bid to boost the housing market. It recently extended tax breaks on mortgage payments and increased the credit limit for donations made for home purchases by as much as 50 percent to 15 million yen.

Those changes have made it easier for the second generation to purchase their homes, Masahiro Mochizuki, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said.

“The government’s policy will help boost the housing market,” said Mochizuki, who estimates down payments at about 10 percent of the total cost of a home. “Without a large amount, people can easily purchase a house with low interest rates.” The Japan Housing Finance Agency’s fixed-rate mortgage program covers up to 90 percent of a home’s purchase amount.

Even as mortgage rates remain low, more can be done to boost the housing market, according to Deutsche Bank’s Otani.

Tax breaks offered by the Japanese government to boost home purchases are only about one-tenth of tax incentives in the U.S. and less than the 70 percent that is available in Germany, according to data provided Japan’s land ministry.

Japan has been blighted by price declines and sluggish economic growth since an asset bubble burst two decades ago. An index of residential land prices has slid by half from its 1991 peak, Japan Real Estate Institute data show.

The central bank’s decision for additional monetary easing and setting an inflation target of 1 percent will help boost land prices in the six major cities by 10 percent, Otani at Deutsche Bank said in a report.
Housing-related expenditures and production totaled 67.5 trillion yen, according to the land ministry. That includes 41.4 trillion yen of spending on construction and electricity and housing related production is estimated at 26.1 trillion yen, it said.

“Housing is the one sector that has the highest multiplier,” said Koll of JPMorgan. “You buy a house, you buy an air conditioner, you buy a washing machine and you buy a television. Nothing gets the economy going as housing.” 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-18/japan-s-echo-boomers-giving-a-lift-to-housing-mortgages

Number of yakuza members drops sharply in 2011

The National Police Agency (NPA) announced on Thursday that the total number of members and associate members within organized crime groups suffered a dramatic decline, reports the Nikkei Shimbun(Mar. 15).

According to figures released by the police, Japan had 70,300 gang members, a decline of 8,300 from the year before. Regular members totaled 32,700 in 2011 (compared with 36,000 in 2010), while affiliates lost 5,000 members and now stand at 37,600.

In 1992, the year that the Anti-Organized Crime Law came into effect, the total number of gang members was over 90,000.

The NPA credits the ongoing legislative push to eradicate criminal organizations as the reason for the decline. A clampdown on cash flows and gang-group activities were mentioned as specific measures that led to the drop.

The Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest criminal organization, has 15,200 regular members (or 46.5 percent of the national total), representing a loss of 2,100 from they year before. At the end of 2010, the organization had 1,500 affiliate groups, but over the next year 142 affiliate groups had ceased operations.

A senior official within the Osaka prefectural police warns that some of the gangsters that have dropped out are entering seemingly legitimate business operations in an effort to funnel capital back to gang groups.

“While the activities that exhibit the power and influence of gang groups are in decline, it is still necessary to continue monitoring what is happening behind the scenes carefully,” said a representative from the NPA.

In 2011, the number of arrests of regular members and associate members increased 2.3 percent to 26,272, the majority of which were due to violations of the stimulant control law (6,511 cases), theft (3,538), assault (3,039), and fraud (2,076).

http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2012/03/16/npa-number-of-yakuza-members-drops-sharply-in-2011/

Less than two people per Tokyo home

The number of people per household in the entire jurisdiction of Tokyo stands at 1.99, falling below 2.00 for the first time on record, the metropolitan government said Thursday.

As of Jan. 1, the capital had a population of 12,686,067 living in approximately 6.368 million households, based on local resident registration data. Comparable data are available dating back to 1957.

While the number of people per household in Tokyo's 23 wards already fell below 2.00 in 2005, the decreasing trend has spread to the general metropolitan area. The number of elderly Tokyoites living alone after the death of their spouses is increasing outside the 23 wards, a metropolitan government official said.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120316b4.html

Anti-Yakuza Laws Begin to Bite VI - Real Impacts showing

Five months after tough new ordinances cracking down on the activities of organized crime syndicates went into effect, it's not yet clear what impact, if any, they've had on gang activities.

"We are resigned to the new antigang regulations, but they have not interfered with our operations or caused us to incur losses," Hiroshi Kimura, the fifth-generation head of Kyushu's largest syndicate, the Kitakyushu City-based Kudokai, remarked to Flash (Mar. 6) in an interview. Kimura nonetheless believes the law unfairly stigmatizes innocent people, such as family members of gangs, and may foster "discriminatory treatment."

Kimura also vociferously denied allegations of his organization's involvement in a bust in Fukuoka City last July, when police confiscated a number of military weapons, including an Israeli-made assault rifle.

Kyushu, home to five major syndicates composed of 170 affiliates with around 3,000 members, has been embroiled in violent gang disputes for nearly five years. Conflict ignited back in August 2007, when Yoshihisa Onaka, head of the Kurume City-based Dojinkai, was assassinated by a shooter said to be affiliated with rival Omuta City-based Kyushu Seidokai. During 2011 alone, 18 shootouts occurred in Kyushu, half of which involved the construction business. On Nov. 26, 72-year-old Toshihiro Uchino, president of Hakushin Construction K.K., was shot to death outside his home in Kitakyushu.

Veteran yakuza-watcher Atsushi Mizoguchi writes in Shukan Gendai (March 3) that while the current crackdown may ostensibly aim at encouraging yakuza to leave their gangs and go straight, the older members "... are aging and have no real skills, so many have no choice but to cling to the old ways." For younger gang members, the future is decidedly bleak.

"Simply by virtue of their gang affiliation they can't legally rent a pad or open a bank account," writes Mizoguchi. "Without a bank account they can't obtain a credit card. I've heard that young gang members being forced out of Kansai, who come to Tokyo looking for work, can't rent a room and are living in their cars. They're just one step from becoming homeless."

Because the new antigang ordinances put the onus on ordinary businesses to refrain from business dealings with gangs, concerns have arisen that police may exploit ambiguities in the law and wield excessive power. Writing in Shukan Kinyobi (Feb. 17), journalist Shunichi Narita points out in the seven categories of people with which companies should refrain from dealing, one of them — racketeers professing to be engaged in a social movement — appears to be aimed at members of rightwing groups, but the terminology is so vague it gives police the leeway to include anyone they wish, which would tread on citizens' right to freedom of association.

Narita also cites an example of how heavy-handed coercion is sometimes applied by the authorities. Students at a driving school in Nagoya were obliged to sign a form pledging they had "absolutely no ties to organized crime." Unless they signed, they could not obtain certification from the school to apply for their driver's license.

In news mentioned thus far in only one weekly magazine, Shukan Jitsuwa (March 15), the U.S. Treasury Department in late February issued new sanctions banning U.S. citizens from making transactions with the Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate and two of its top members, whose American-owned assets were to be frozen.

"The action to slap sanctions on the Yamaguchi-gumi seems quite unconnected to any political or financial goals that the Obama Administration might have for Japan," explains Washington-based investigative journalist David E. Kaplan. "It is, rather, a result of the U.S. government's top experts on organized crime finally getting Washington to focus on the world's major criminal cartels, which have largely escaped attention during the 'war on terrorism' decade since 9/11.

"It's not only the yakuza which are being targeted by the Treasury Department, but a whole host of leading mafia syndicates — Central Asia's Brothers' Circle, Italy's Camorra and Mexico's Los Zetas."

Kaplan, coauthor with Alec Dubro of the 1986 nonfiction work "Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld" — to be reissued later this year by the University of California Press — pointed out that the syndicates have largely avoided investments in the U.S. since the 1980s, but have expanded across Asia.

"It's hard for them to avoid dealing with U.S. financial institutions in the international arena," Kaplan remarked. "They'll be needing their fixers and financial experts more than ever."

In another development, last Monday, the government announced additional measures to crack down on the gangs. The Sankei Shimbun (Feb. 28) reported that revisions to the antigang law will add two new labels — "designated dangerous gang" and "designated disputing gang" — both of which will enable police to slap injunctions on the gangs, making it easier to prevent them from such activities as demanding payment of "protection money" by subjecting offenders to summary arrest.

The Sankei also noted that since 1987, out of 24 civil lawsuits by local residents to evict gang offices from their neighborhoods, 21 have been successful (three more are still pending). The latest revisions will include new measures to protect residents and their attorneys from harassment by gangs named in the lawsuits.

spending down as deflation persists

Japanese unemployment inched up and household spending fell more sharply than expected in January, latest government data showed, but analysts said the nation's economic recovery was still on track.
Figures from the internal affairs ministry showed the unemployment rate crept up to 4.6 percent in January from a revised 4.5 percent in the previous month while household spending dropped by 2.3 percent year-on-year.

The inflation-adjusted fall in spending was far bigger than the 0.8 percent dip economists had expected.
However, analysts said the figures did not indicate Japan's economic recovery was in trouble because they were more than offset by upbeat production figures earlier in the week.

The recent batch of data confirmed "the economy is on a gradual recovery track," said Satoshi Osanai, economist at Daiwa Institute of Research.

"The data on production and capital spending continued to be positive. As production recovers and currency exchange rates help improve corporate earnings, we expect employment and consumption will also pick up," he said.

The yen has tracked lower since the Bank of Japan surprised markets two weeks ago with the announcement that it would pump $130 billion more into the economy in the latest push to combat deflation.

The yen changed hands at 81.20 to the dollar and 108.17 to the euro in Tokyo midday trade on Friday, much weaker than 76.19 and 99.56 of a month ago. A strong yen reduces Japanese exporters' repatriated income.

The internal affairs ministry also said Japan's core consumer prices fell 0.1 percent in January from a year earlier, as the deflation that has plagued Japan for years persisted.

Deflation is bad for the economy because it encourages consumers to put off spending in the belief their intended purchases will be cheaper in the future, softening demand and hurting producers.

Yoshiro Sato, economist at Credit Agricole bank, said "there is still room for employment growth especially in manufacturing industries."

"Considering the expected recovery in industrial production going forward on the back of supply chain normalisation and reconstruction demand, we maintain our view that employment in those industries will recover and contribute to stable labour market conditions going forward."

Japanese exporters were hit badly by the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan and flooding in Thailand last year.

The trade and industry ministry said Wednesday Japan's industrial production in January rose by a bigger-than-expected 2.0 percent from the previous month.

Automakers and electronics manufacturers continue to ramp up output as they try to make up for the disruption they suffered in the Thai floods.

The finance ministry said Thursday that capital spending by Japanese firms grew 7.6 percent in the final three months of 2011 from a year earlier, the first upturn in three quarters, on investment to rebuild damaged facilities.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iA0bzCAxedaVbh07mngxyIftt_Bw?docId=CNG.f718becedd1c7ac8c583c95ccde1298d.111