For Kaori Kaneko's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
When she worked in sales for a bank, Chihiro Narazaki was passed over for the best assignments in favor of older colleagues. Her input was discouraged and she often stayed late just to do routine paperwork. The 29-year-old knew where this was heading: Her father, ...
The Bank of Japan should consider buying foreign bonds as part of efforts to reflate the economy during Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda's second term at the central bank helm, an economic adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. The BOJ is prohibited by law from buying ...
Economic talks between the United States and Japan, tackling topics from persimmons and potatoes to energy and infrastructure, have helped keep Tokyo clear of protectionist moves such as those that recently hit Chinese solar panels and South Korean washers. Japan hopes its "let's talk" approach ...
A new breed of younger, business- and tech-savvy farmers is transforming Japan's shrinking agriculture sector with cutting-edge techniques and marketing strategies, giving new hope to an industry in slow decline. Hiroki Iwasa, a 40-year-old IT entrepreneur with an MBA, grows strawberries in seven high-tech greenhouses ...
Naruhito Nogami, a 37-year-old systems engineer in Tokyo, drives to discount stores on weekends to buy cheap groceries in bulk, even though he earns enough to make ends meet and the prospects for Japan's economic recovery are brighter. "I do have money, but I'm frugal ...
Japan should push back if U.S. President Donald Trump bases trade and other economic policy on "wrong economics," an adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Reuters in an unusually direct expression of concern about potential protectionism. Koichi Hamada, emeritus professor of economics at Yale ...
Japan's high-cost farmers, sheltered by prohibitive import tariffs, might appear to be most at risk from the giant trans-Pacific trade deal agreed upon last month, but they are instead making an unlikely push to export more of their pricey produce. The latest figures show that ...
Factory worker Satomi Iwata has new coworkers, a troupe of humanoid automata that are helping to address two of Japan's most pressing concerns — a shortage of labor and a need for growth. The 19 robots, which cost her employer Glory Ltd. about ¥7.4 million ...
Making wine comes naturally to Ayana Misawa, having spent her childhood in vineyards watching her father and grandfather nurture cherished Koshu grapes, a variety known for its fresh and fruity overtones. Misawa and other winemakers in the wine hub of Yamanashi Prefecture are set on ...
Neurosurgeon Tetsuya Goto had just begun testing a robot to perform brain surgery when he discovered Japan was moving to tighten regulations that would shut down his seven-year project. Over the next dozen years he watched in frustration as the da Vinci, a rival endoscopic ...
