Akao Aluminum Co., the only supplier of ¥1 coins, has produced its first batch in four years to meet an expected surge in demand for small change as the consumption tax jumps to 8 percent on Tuesday.
In March, Akao finished about 26 million faceless 1-gram aluminum slugs that it sent to the Japan Mint's Hiroshima branch, where the figure "1" and the year is being stamped on one side, and a symbol of a tree on the other, said Yoshinori Nakao, production manager of the Tokyo-based company.
Minting more coins may save retailers from shortages that accompanied the debut of the consumption tax at 3 percent in 1989, according to Masao Nakata, an economics professor at Seijo University in Tokyo. The tax was last raised, to 5 percent, in 1997. Japan's coins come in denominations of ¥1, ¥5, ¥10, ¥50, ¥100 and ¥500.