Japan is working on a plan to extend the maximum stay for foreign
visitors who meet certain income and asset requirements to one year,
aiming to encourage spending and real estate investment.
Under the current system, foreigners who come to Japan for tourism may
stay up to 90 days. By raising this cap for well-off visitors, the
government hopes to attract investment in real estate such as vacation
homes and condominiums, as well as make it easier to visit scenic spots
in areas outside Tokyo and Kyoto.
The requirements have not
yet been determined. Australia, which has a similar system, limits
applicants to those 55 or older with at least 65,000 Australian dollars
($59,956) in annual income and assets of at least 750,000 Australian
dollars.
The government aims to determine age, income and
asset requirements by summer, using examples from other countries as a
reference, and set up the program as early as this year.
Japan hopes to double the number of foreign tourists to 20 million a
year by 2020. This proposal will be incorporated in a revised plan for
encouraging tourism to be completed in June.
Another measure
to be included is setting up a priority lane at Narita and Kansai
airports next fiscal year, for foreign VIPs such as government officials
and businessmen traveling first class. Such arrangements, which allow
arrivals and departures to proceed faster, are common overseas, but none
have yet been put in place in Japanese airports.
Nikkei
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Tokyo OKs $1.6bn or $3bn New Stadium for Olympics
Tokyo (AFP) - Japanese sports chiefs on Wednesday
gave the greenlight to a new $1.6 billion stadium for the 2020 Olympics,
all but dashing the hopes of campaigners who say the building and its
price tag, are too big.
The basic design of the 80,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof, originally conceived by prize-winning Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid and shaped like a bike helmet, was rubber-stamped by the council and a panel of advisers.
The structure is set to be built on the site of the 56-year-old, 54,000-seat National Stadium, which will be dismantled over 15 months beginning in July.
The new stadium is set to be completed in time for the rugby World Cup, which Japan hosts in 2019, a year ahead of the Summer Games.
The Tokyo stadium will be built in an area with numerous parks and a grand Shinto shrine, and will tower over most of the structures around it, with building heights historically limited to 15 metres. That limit was raised by Tokyo Metropolitan Government to 75 metres in June last year.
Criticism grew when Japan's minister in charge of the Olympics estimated the stadium would cost about 300 billion yen ($3 billion), more than double the 130 billion yen that was originally stipulated in the design competition.
The estimated cost has since been reduced to 160 billion yen, including by scaling down the stadium's floor space.
Critics have scoffed at the sudden price cut, and suggest the final bill will be much higher.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/world/a/23932643/japan-sport-chiefs-greenlight-huge-stadium/
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Alchemy Japan Sues Carval Investors for US$3million for improper sale of Hotels
Alchemy Japan commenced legal proceedings in the Tokyo District Court against Carval Investors, and its shell companies, seeking to recover
almost JPY300 million (US$3million) in damages resulting from Carval's
sale of Cargill's Love Hotels to entities and persons suspected by Kroll Advisory Solutions of ties to Japanese
organized crime, the yakuza.
An English translation of the Japanese Statement of Claim can be found at -
Alchemy Japan vs Carval Investors - English Translation of Japanese Law Suit
For the background to this dispute see -
What Happened at Carval Investors Japan?
An English translation of the Japanese Statement of Claim can be found at -
Alchemy Japan vs Carval Investors - English Translation of Japanese Law Suit
For the background to this dispute see -
What Happened at Carval Investors Japan?
アルケミージャパンは2.78億円の損害を主張カーバル・インベスターズに対する訴訟を開始
アルケミージャパンは2.78億円の損害を主張カーバル・インベスターズに対する訴訟を開始
訴訟はカーバルのレジャーホテルで2012年9月の出来事から生じる
訴訟文書: アルケミージャパン vs カーバル・インベスターズ
訴訟はカーバルのレジャーホテルで2012年9月の出来事から生じる
訴訟文書: アルケミージャパン vs カーバル・インベスターズ
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Japan Casino Push Leads to Calls for Review of Pachinko Status - New Taxes foreshadowed
Moves toward legalizing casinos in Japan have reignited a debate over
the legal status of pachinko, with a potential new tax mooted for a
$200 billion gaming industry that has existed for decades on the fringes
of the law.
Pachinko, a slot-cum-pinball form of gambling, is a national obsession, with 1 in 6 Japanese playing the game, though that number is declining as younger generations prefer to play games on their mobile phones.
With past links to organized crime, pachinko is not classified as gambling, which is illegal in Japan. Instead it’s treated as an amusement activity like arcades and hostess bars, and the operators of the parlors that are found in city streets across Japan pay no gaming tax.
As some lawmakers push to allow casinos that would contribute billions of dollars to state coffers, pachinko, too, could come under a new regulatory umbrella.
Takeshi Iwaya, a leading proponent for casinos from the Liberal Democratic Party, reckons any move to change pachinko laws should come once casinos are up and running, which could be as early as 2020, when Tokyo will host the Olympic Games.
While years away, such reforms may have greater implications for the pachinko industry than the likely loss of customers to new casino resorts, analysts say. And reforming the industry won’t be easy, given the web of special interests involved — not least the national police agency, which oversees it.
“I see no easy way out for the pachinko industry,” said Ichiro Tanioka, an expert on Japanese gaming industries and president of the Osaka University of Commerce, a leading proponent in the casino debate. “It’s a mess.”
In pachinko, players buy baskets of small silver balls that they feed into the machine and guide into a hole that spins out numbers or characters on an electronic screen. Matching series win the player more silver balls, which can be exchanged for snacks, alcohol or small items in the pachinko hall.
Most players, however, opt to trade in their winnings for “special prizes,” which they then swap for yen at small booths outside, but close to, the hall. Legally, these booths are separate from the hall operator, skirting anti-gambling laws.
The police stop short of fully endorsing this system as legal, placing it in a regulatory gray zone that has effectively barred pachinko hall operators from listing their shares on a Japanese stock exchange.
To help bring the game out of the regulatory shadows, a lawyer with ties to the industry suggested a “pachinko law” that would allow balls to be exchanged for cash inside pachinko halls. The main lobby group for parlor operators, though, wants to keep the existing system, but give it legitimacy through a state-supervised program.
Either plan would generate about $2 billion in annual revenue for the government, according to copies of the proposals.
Yoji Sato, one of Japan’s wealthiest tycoons and chairman of Dynam Japan Holdings, a pachinko hall operator listed in Hong Kong, backs reforms that bring all the industry’s moving parts under one law. He acknowledged the industry faces close scrutiny.
“Any industry that cannot be accepted or understood by society will cease to exist,” Sato, 68, said in an interview. “Dynam is in principle behind any move to clarify the industry’s role in society.”
Seiko Noda, another LDP lawmaker involved in both pushing for casinos and the pachinko debate, said there is no consensus yet on how best to regulate pachinko.
Among the 4,000 or so firms involved in the industry, the smaller, financially weaker hall operators are more worried about change, and particularly about any new tax plan, Noda said. “The hall owners are quite afraid they will be ordered to pay more tax to the government, so I’m considering it very carefully,” she told reporters at her office in Tokyo.
Dynam and other leading pachinko operators, meanwhile, are vying to open multibillion-dollar casino resorts — should regulations permit.
A recent Morgan Stanley report predicted that Japan’s casino market could be worth $21 billion to $22 billion — though that’s less than half the size of Macau’s, and well below a consensus view of around $40 billion, by 2025.
Sato said his focus is on that domestic casino opportunity, adding his company has held talks with casino operators including Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment and Melco Entertainment.
Rival hall operator Maruhan and two of Japan’s biggest pachinko machine makers, Sega Sammy and Konami, have also met casino operators, industry executives say. To gain experience in the resort business, Sega Sammy is building a $1.7 billion casino in the South Korean coastal city of Incheon with local gaming firm Paradise Co.
This diversification isn’t just driven by potential pachinko reforms. Pachinko revenues are falling as Japan’s population ages and as younger people turn to mobile devices for entertainment. On a recent visit to a brightly lit pachinko hall in an outlying Tokyo suburb, most of the players were middle-aged men.
While pachinko is unlikely to be badly hit in the short term — parlors are informal and widespread, while casinos will be upscale and out of town — a recent increase in Japan’s sales tax may squeeze small operators and accelerate consolidation.
Japan Times
Pachinko, a slot-cum-pinball form of gambling, is a national obsession, with 1 in 6 Japanese playing the game, though that number is declining as younger generations prefer to play games on their mobile phones.
With past links to organized crime, pachinko is not classified as gambling, which is illegal in Japan. Instead it’s treated as an amusement activity like arcades and hostess bars, and the operators of the parlors that are found in city streets across Japan pay no gaming tax.
As some lawmakers push to allow casinos that would contribute billions of dollars to state coffers, pachinko, too, could come under a new regulatory umbrella.
Takeshi Iwaya, a leading proponent for casinos from the Liberal Democratic Party, reckons any move to change pachinko laws should come once casinos are up and running, which could be as early as 2020, when Tokyo will host the Olympic Games.
While years away, such reforms may have greater implications for the pachinko industry than the likely loss of customers to new casino resorts, analysts say. And reforming the industry won’t be easy, given the web of special interests involved — not least the national police agency, which oversees it.
“I see no easy way out for the pachinko industry,” said Ichiro Tanioka, an expert on Japanese gaming industries and president of the Osaka University of Commerce, a leading proponent in the casino debate. “It’s a mess.”
In pachinko, players buy baskets of small silver balls that they feed into the machine and guide into a hole that spins out numbers or characters on an electronic screen. Matching series win the player more silver balls, which can be exchanged for snacks, alcohol or small items in the pachinko hall.
Most players, however, opt to trade in their winnings for “special prizes,” which they then swap for yen at small booths outside, but close to, the hall. Legally, these booths are separate from the hall operator, skirting anti-gambling laws.
The police stop short of fully endorsing this system as legal, placing it in a regulatory gray zone that has effectively barred pachinko hall operators from listing their shares on a Japanese stock exchange.
To help bring the game out of the regulatory shadows, a lawyer with ties to the industry suggested a “pachinko law” that would allow balls to be exchanged for cash inside pachinko halls. The main lobby group for parlor operators, though, wants to keep the existing system, but give it legitimacy through a state-supervised program.
Either plan would generate about $2 billion in annual revenue for the government, according to copies of the proposals.
Yoji Sato, one of Japan’s wealthiest tycoons and chairman of Dynam Japan Holdings, a pachinko hall operator listed in Hong Kong, backs reforms that bring all the industry’s moving parts under one law. He acknowledged the industry faces close scrutiny.
“Any industry that cannot be accepted or understood by society will cease to exist,” Sato, 68, said in an interview. “Dynam is in principle behind any move to clarify the industry’s role in society.”
Seiko Noda, another LDP lawmaker involved in both pushing for casinos and the pachinko debate, said there is no consensus yet on how best to regulate pachinko.
Among the 4,000 or so firms involved in the industry, the smaller, financially weaker hall operators are more worried about change, and particularly about any new tax plan, Noda said. “The hall owners are quite afraid they will be ordered to pay more tax to the government, so I’m considering it very carefully,” she told reporters at her office in Tokyo.
Dynam and other leading pachinko operators, meanwhile, are vying to open multibillion-dollar casino resorts — should regulations permit.
A recent Morgan Stanley report predicted that Japan’s casino market could be worth $21 billion to $22 billion — though that’s less than half the size of Macau’s, and well below a consensus view of around $40 billion, by 2025.
Sato said his focus is on that domestic casino opportunity, adding his company has held talks with casino operators including Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment and Melco Entertainment.
Rival hall operator Maruhan and two of Japan’s biggest pachinko machine makers, Sega Sammy and Konami, have also met casino operators, industry executives say. To gain experience in the resort business, Sega Sammy is building a $1.7 billion casino in the South Korean coastal city of Incheon with local gaming firm Paradise Co.
This diversification isn’t just driven by potential pachinko reforms. Pachinko revenues are falling as Japan’s population ages and as younger people turn to mobile devices for entertainment. On a recent visit to a brightly lit pachinko hall in an outlying Tokyo suburb, most of the players were middle-aged men.
While pachinko is unlikely to be badly hit in the short term — parlors are informal and widespread, while casinos will be upscale and out of town — a recent increase in Japan’s sales tax may squeeze small operators and accelerate consolidation.
Japan Times
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Tokyo office rents hit 4-year high in first half of 2014
The trend is shown by the office building rent index, which is based on rates when owners solicit new tenants. The index came to 129.81 in the first half for properties in Tokyo built a year or more ago, up 3.92 points on the year. It takes the February 1985 figure as 100.
Businesses are looking for more office space as they expand operations and conduct midcareer hiring.
Companies "are in strong need of improving their locations, as they think about hiring and other factors," says an official at Tokyo Tatemono, a leading real estate developer.
The index for new buildings, those less than a year old, fell. In this category, supply centers around midsize properties, which owners tend to have difficulty renting out at high rates.
In Osaka, meanwhile, the index for buildings at least a year old was 124.45, up 1.95 points. The figure for new buildings fell.
http://asia.nikkei.com/Markets/Realty-Reality/Tokyo-office-rents-hit-4-year-high-in-first-half-of-2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
2013 - Yakuza membership shrinks to record low
It is tough to be in the organized crime business in Japan. The latest
figures provided by the National Police Agency (NPA) show that core
membership of the 21 largest yakuza groups has fallen steadily in the
last three years, but the decline was more marked in 2013.
According to the NPA, there were 58,600 registered gang members in 2013 - 25,600 identified as full members of recognized groups and 33,000 classified as "associate members."
That total figure is down by 4,600 from the previous year and the lowest since the Anti-Organized Crime Law first took effect in 1992, while arrests of gang members was put at 22,861 over the year, down 1,278 from 2012.
The law has been updated several times in the last 22 years, points out Jake Adelstein, author of "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan" and an expert on Japan's underworld groups. The most significant change came on October 1, 2011, when it became a crime for anyone to pay protection money to a gang member.
Down from 80,000
"Membership was hovering around the 80,000 mark for years and years, but the law that criminalized paying protection money has really hit them hard," Adelstein told DW.
"Traditionally, a lower-ranking yakuza earned his money from protection in his neighborhood," Adelstein said. "He earned an income, paid his dues to the group, had the right to use the organization's name in his 'business' and generally terrorize people.
"But when these people could no longer pay their dues, they were no longer part of the gang and - like any corporation - they went out of business." And life for these relatively unskilled and unqualified members of Japanese society - some indelibly marked with the tattoos and missing fingers that single out members of the Japanese underworld - is subsequently tough.
Adelstein says his research indicates they often end up in the construction industry or driving trucks, but many eventually resort to crimes that are taboo in the yakuza world, such as theft and robbery. Many end up in prison and the suicide rate for former gangsters is higher than in general Japanese society.
Japanese gangs are also facing a challenge to their monopoly on the market here, with groups from China, Korea, Russia, Iran and elsewhere making inroads into their traditional heartlands.
Foreign crime groups
Some groups, such as those from Vietnam and Pakistan, specialize in stealing cars and jewelry and then ship their loot abroad. Others focus on importing heroin through Malaysia and other narcotics from Africa.
But another factor imperiling a segment of society that has always been considered a fact of life among the Japanese public are the nation's well-documents economic and demographic problems.
"It's a two-tier labor market and we're seeing the same thing in contractions in Japanese schools and corporations," said Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs.
"It could be argued that the yakuza were at the forefront of the downsizing movement here in Japan, turning to more irregular, part-time workers to complement their work force," he said.
And that means that income for the lowest level of gangsters is so pitifully low that the gangs are attracting fewer recruits. Combined with a falling birth rate, leading to a smaller pool of potential employees, the outlook for the underworld appears bleak.
New business opportunities
One possible way out is for gangsters to look overseas for opportunities. One of the most popular new areas they are examining is casino operations, in Macau, the Philippines and Cambodia.
"In Cambodia, there is no mafia presence, the entire political structure in the Philippines is corrupt so it's just a case of making sure you pay the correct people, while the underworld groups in Macau are not very strong," said Adelstein. "Others are setting up investment companies in Hong Kong and Singapore to manipulate stock market prices and make money in that way," he added.
As well as Asia, the yakuza's tentacles stretch as far as shell companies in the British Virgin Islands and Amsterdam, while one group is so brazen in its operations that it has little hesitation in sponsoring its own golf tournaments.
Overseas operations are, however, full of potential problems for crime syndicates that have previously focused their illegal intentions on the relatively easy domestic market. The most obvious threat to any business setting up in a foreign market is upsetting the local operators, as well as the need to carve out a new market for whatever sector that organization is working in.
And despite a history that stretches back to the 17th century, the yakuza are even fading in significance and influence in Japanese society. "When was the last time we saw a movie that glorified the yakuza?" asked Okumura. "That says something about this society. The yakuza just don't sell any more and maybe that is a result of social pressure not to glorify these people."
DW.de
According to the NPA, there were 58,600 registered gang members in 2013 - 25,600 identified as full members of recognized groups and 33,000 classified as "associate members."
That total figure is down by 4,600 from the previous year and the lowest since the Anti-Organized Crime Law first took effect in 1992, while arrests of gang members was put at 22,861 over the year, down 1,278 from 2012.
The law has been updated several times in the last 22 years, points out Jake Adelstein, author of "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan" and an expert on Japan's underworld groups. The most significant change came on October 1, 2011, when it became a crime for anyone to pay protection money to a gang member.
Down from 80,000
"Membership was hovering around the 80,000 mark for years and years, but the law that criminalized paying protection money has really hit them hard," Adelstein told DW.
"Traditionally, a lower-ranking yakuza earned his money from protection in his neighborhood," Adelstein said. "He earned an income, paid his dues to the group, had the right to use the organization's name in his 'business' and generally terrorize people.
"But when these people could no longer pay their dues, they were no longer part of the gang and - like any corporation - they went out of business." And life for these relatively unskilled and unqualified members of Japanese society - some indelibly marked with the tattoos and missing fingers that single out members of the Japanese underworld - is subsequently tough.
Adelstein says his research indicates they often end up in the construction industry or driving trucks, but many eventually resort to crimes that are taboo in the yakuza world, such as theft and robbery. Many end up in prison and the suicide rate for former gangsters is higher than in general Japanese society.
Japanese gangs are also facing a challenge to their monopoly on the market here, with groups from China, Korea, Russia, Iran and elsewhere making inroads into their traditional heartlands.
Foreign crime groups
Some groups, such as those from Vietnam and Pakistan, specialize in stealing cars and jewelry and then ship their loot abroad. Others focus on importing heroin through Malaysia and other narcotics from Africa.
But another factor imperiling a segment of society that has always been considered a fact of life among the Japanese public are the nation's well-documents economic and demographic problems.
"It's a two-tier labor market and we're seeing the same thing in contractions in Japanese schools and corporations," said Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs.
"It could be argued that the yakuza were at the forefront of the downsizing movement here in Japan, turning to more irregular, part-time workers to complement their work force," he said.
And that means that income for the lowest level of gangsters is so pitifully low that the gangs are attracting fewer recruits. Combined with a falling birth rate, leading to a smaller pool of potential employees, the outlook for the underworld appears bleak.
New business opportunities
One possible way out is for gangsters to look overseas for opportunities. One of the most popular new areas they are examining is casino operations, in Macau, the Philippines and Cambodia.
"In Cambodia, there is no mafia presence, the entire political structure in the Philippines is corrupt so it's just a case of making sure you pay the correct people, while the underworld groups in Macau are not very strong," said Adelstein. "Others are setting up investment companies in Hong Kong and Singapore to manipulate stock market prices and make money in that way," he added.
As well as Asia, the yakuza's tentacles stretch as far as shell companies in the British Virgin Islands and Amsterdam, while one group is so brazen in its operations that it has little hesitation in sponsoring its own golf tournaments.
Overseas operations are, however, full of potential problems for crime syndicates that have previously focused their illegal intentions on the relatively easy domestic market. The most obvious threat to any business setting up in a foreign market is upsetting the local operators, as well as the need to carve out a new market for whatever sector that organization is working in.
And despite a history that stretches back to the 17th century, the yakuza are even fading in significance and influence in Japanese society. "When was the last time we saw a movie that glorified the yakuza?" asked Okumura. "That says something about this society. The yakuza just don't sell any more and maybe that is a result of social pressure not to glorify these people."
DW.de
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