Japan's top two stock exchanges are starting campaigns to lure overseas investors after agreeing last month to merge amid falling trading volumes.
Tokyo Stock Exchange Group Inc. is starting an English-language magazine, called Evolving Japan, targeting foreign investors, said bourse spokesman Kazuhiko Yoshimatsu. Osaka Securities Exchange Co. will hold its first overseas investor relations event this week to promote startup companies listed on its Jasdaq exchange, including auction website Rakuten Inc., according to Yumi Ito, a manager at the bourse's corporate services development group.
The effort to interest foreign investors, who account for about two-thirds of the turnover on Japanese exchanges, comes as Europe's debt crisis deepens a four-year slump in trading volumes. It also comes amid increasing competition from China, which in 2008 surpassed Japan as the world's second-largest equity market.