For Junko Fujita's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Hidden beneath its streets, Japan's aging sewer pipes spotlight a challenge that has held back reforms Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing to revitalize the world's third-biggest economy. Overhauling the country's infrastructure — roads, tunnels, ports and sewage plants, many of them built after the ...
Boutique advisers specializing in micro mergers and acquisitions for mostly family-run firms are enjoying a boom as the aging, shrinking population puts the squeeze on Japan's small business landscape. There are no industrywide figures for deals between ¥500 million and ¥1 billion, but boutique advisers ...
Commercial property prices in Tokyo, a bellwether for the market, look to have peaked as the capital faces a glut of new offices even as the number of workers is set to decline. The property market had rebounded in the past three years as Prime ...
Deep in a forest in Fukui Prefecture, a 13th century Buddhist temple where Steve Jobs once dreamed of becoming a Zen monk has teamed up with a Tokyo skyscraper builder to seek the commercial enlightenment of foreign tourist dollars. As a weak yen fuels record ...
The surge in tourists visiting Japan is stretching the ability of hotels to accommodate them in a sector constrained by high costs, forcing developers to think out of the box for means to quickly increase lodging options without breaking the bank. Japan is on target ...
With Japan's tourist numbers and hotel prices on the rise thanks to a weaker yen, developers are getting creative with a new niche line of stylish but cheap accommodations in bunks, cabins and pods of all shapes and sizes. Even a tiny double room in ...
An economic rebound and loose money policy under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe briefly halted a long slide in Japan's commercial property market, but the benefits of "Abenomics" appear increasingly limited to Tokyo, leaving a moribund hinterland. For a while, as the Bank of Japan printed ...
While rival banks sit on their deposits, frustrating the government efforts to reflate a stagnant economy, regional banker Takashi Tsuchiya will write you a loan to close your business or end your marriage. The portly boss of Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank (OKB) in Gifu Prefecture, who ...
At his three-star Michelin restaurant in Tokyo, Yoshihiro Murata serves elaborate 12-course meals of delicate Japanese food. But his real passion is to make sure simple, traditional food is passed on to the next generation. Japanese food is now widely available around the world, and ...
The economy is so healthy it's bad for business, according to Mitsuo Hirose, who heads golf operations in Japan for John Grayken's Lone Star Funds. "It used to be we'd just buy and buy," Hirose, 70, said of the company's roster of 111 Japanese golf ...
