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Workers assemble a Nissan Juke at the production line at Nissan's factory in Sunderland, England, in November 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 28, 2025

Nissan seeks to raise $7 billion with backing from U.K. government

The struggling automaker plans to issue debt and sell assets to raise funds for keeping its operations on track, according to internal documents.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks at the Regulatory Reform Promotion Council on Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office.
JAPAN
May 29, 2025

Japan may allow bus and railway firms to enter ride-hailing business

The council called for promoting ride-hailing services to address the nationwide transportation shortage and suggested a trial for bus and railway operators.
Tokyo’s consumer price index that serves as a leading indicator for national inflation trends posted in May the biggest year-on-year rise since January 2023.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 30, 2025

Tokyo prices rising most in two years keeps BOJ on hike path

The food price gains are a worrisome sign for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba ahead of a summer election expected to be held by July.
Pipelines at Jera's thermal power station in Futtsu, Chiba Prefecture
BUSINESS / Companies
May 30, 2025

Japan’s top LNG importer will explore buying from Alaska

Jera, which is also the nation’s largest power producer, inked the nonbinding pact ahead of a summit in the U.S. state next week.
Tokyo-listed Dai-ichi Life has been aggressively expanding beyond traditional life insurance in Japan and focusing on asset management as one of its growth areas.
BUSINESS
May 30, 2025

Dai-ichi Life to buy $1.1 billion M&G stake in partnership

Tokyo-listed Dai-ichi Life has been aggressively expanding beyond traditional life insurance in Japan and focusing on asset management as one of its growth areas.
Since last summer, the Bank of Japan has been reducing its buying of government bonds by ¥400 billion every quarter, but that process will come to a halt, according to former board member Makoto Sakurai.
BUSINESS
Jun 3, 2025

BOJ likely to stop cutting bond purchases in next fiscal year, ex-official says

The government’s cost for debt servicing has risen to about a quarter of its budget for this fiscal year, thanks partly to higher interest rates.
Toyota group companies could establish a new holding company to privatize Toyota Industries.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 3, 2025

Toyota Industries receives $33 billion buyout offer from group companies

The deal would be in line with government efforts to encourage big companies to unwind cross-held shares with subsidiaries and other businesses.
Business and household sentiments "have deteriorated recently," Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda said Tuesday at an event in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 4, 2025

Uncertainties over Trump tariffs extremely strong, BOJ chief says

The Bank of Japan will continue to raise interest rates if the Japanese economy and prices move in line with the central bank's outlook, Gov. Kazuo Ueda added.
Workers transport soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China in 2010.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 4, 2025

Global alarms rise as China's critical mineral export curbs take hold

China has a stranglehold on minerals crucial for sectors ranging from aerospace to semiconductors.
Japanese trading companies' shares gained following comments from Warren Buffett at the Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting that he expects his company to hold the shares for 50 years or more.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2025

Buffett inspires retail investors to bet on Japan trading houses

Japanese trading companies shares gained following comments from Warren Buffett that he expects his company to hold the shares for 50 years or more.
U.S. President Donald Trump at the U.S. Steel Corporation Irvin Works facility in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, on Friday
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 4, 2025

U.K. avoids doubled U.S. steel and aluminium tariffs as countries eye trade pact

The U.S. announcement, which exempts British steel and aluminum from a doubling of tariffs to 50%, came in a proclamation that will raise metals tariffs for other countries.
Kobayashi Pharmaceutical President Norikazu Toyoda in Osaka on May 30
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2025

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical vows never to repeat health crisis

In March 2024, the drugmaker, based in Osaka, announced that it had received a series of reports about such symptoms as kidney disease from users of its supplements.
Toyota Industries' Nagakusa plant in Obu, Aichi Prefecture. Toyota group's tender offer to privatize Toyota Industries represents an 11.4% discount to its closing price before the plan was announced.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2025

Toyota Industries buyout hinges on squeezing minority investors

In order for the buyout to work, the ¥16,300 per share tender offer will need to attract enough minority shareholders to cross a 42% threshold.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a speech during the Meta Connect event at in Menlo Park, California, in September 2023. The partnership between Zuckerberg's Meta and defense firm Anduril to build battlefield XR gear underscores how working with the military, once taboo in Silicon Valley, is now actively embraced.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2025

Mark Zuckerberg finally found a use for his Metaverse — war

Anduril and Meta are partnering to design, build and field a range of integrated XR products that provide warfighters with enhanced perception on the battlefield.
Tesla’s shares dropped 14% on Thursday in New York, erasing about $150 billion from the electric vehicle maker’s market value.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 6, 2025

Tesla plunges after conflict between Musk and Trump spills into open

The electric vehicle maker's shares dropped 14% on Thursday in New York, the stock’s biggest decline since March 10.
Many curry shops are going bankrupt in Japan as prices of mainstay ingredients have gone up due to a rice shortage, adverse weather and a weak yen.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 6, 2025

Soaring rice prices take a bite out of Japan's beloved curry shops

A total of 13 shops with more than ¥10 million in debt filed for bankruptcy in the year ended March — a record high for a second consecutive year.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 28.
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2025

Trump says China's Xi agreed to let rare earth minerals flow to U.S.

Trump's comment came one day after a rare call with Xi aimed at resolving trade tensions that have been brewing over the topic for weeks.
Akihiko Ogino, president and CEO of Daiwa Securities Group, says Japan should press ahead with diversity initiatives as he attends the Tokyo Pride parade in the capital's Shibuya area on Sunday.
BUSINESS
Jun 8, 2025

Top banker vows loyalty to DEI at Tokyo Pride Parade as Trump’s pushback rages

Few Japanese executives have spoken out on U.S. backlash to DEI, though many firms seem to be quietly maintaining their initiatives.
Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Jan. 28
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 8, 2025

Meta in talks for Scale AI investment that could top $10 billion

The financing could exceed $10 billion in value, some of the people said, making it one of the largest private company funding events of all time.
Japan's gross domestic product shrank at an annualized pace of 0.2% in the three months through March, the revised data showed, confirming the country's economy shrank even before U.S. President Donald Trump amped up tariff pressure in April.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 9, 2025

Japan confirms GDP contraction, backing BOJ’s cautious stance

GDP shrank at an annualized pace of 0.2% in the three months through March, a less severe drop than the initial estimate of a 0.7% decline.
The BYD Han full-size luxury sedan. EV industry analysts say a combination of weaker demand and extreme overcapacity will slice into profits at the strongest brands and force feebler competitors to fold.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 9, 2025

BYD unleashes an EV industry reckoning that alarms Beijing

The price war engulfing China’s electric vehicle industry has sent share prices tumbling and prompted an unusual level of intervention from Beijing. The shakeout may just be getting started.
Alexandr Wang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Scale AI, has emerged as an influential force in the artificial intelligence industry. His company's army of contractors label the data that tech firms use to train and improve their AI models.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 9, 2025

Meta set to throw billions at startup that leads AI data market

Scale AI uses an army of contractors to label the data that tech firms use to train and improve their AI models
The Japan Securities Dealers Association sent questionnaires to major Japanese and foreign brokerages asking about bond selling irregularities.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 9, 2025

JSDA said to probe brokerages on unsuitable Japanese bond sales

The probe marks a step toward ridding Japan’s primary bond market of opaque sales practices as rising interest rates boost investor appetite for debt with higher yields.
U.S. Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent (L) and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (R) shake hands as they pose for a photo during trade discussions at the Lancaster House in London on Monday.
BUSINESS
Jun 10, 2025

U.S.-China trade and minerals talks in London set to extend to second day

Washington and Beijing are trying to revive a temporary truce struck in Geneva that had briefly lowered trade tensions and calmed markets.
Kenji Shimizu, the incoming president of Fuji Media Holdings, said in an interview in Tokyo on Monday that the company has yet to finalize its long-term strategy.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 10, 2025

Fuji Media keeps real estate spinoff in play as activists circle

"All options” remain on the table, says incoming President Kenji Shimizu.
A customer poses with a Nintendo Switch 2 console at a Bic Camera electronics store in Tokyo on June 5.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 11, 2025

Nintendo's Switch 2 sets sales record in boon for gaming sector

The numbers bode well for its target of selling 15 million units by March next year.
The logo of South Korea's biggest automaker company, Hyundai Motor, is pictured in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on April 15.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 11, 2025

Hyundai Motor has a rare earths stockpile that can last about a year, source says

The stockpiling indicates Hyundai is better-placed than many competitors to withstand restrictions that have already impacted production for many companies.
Shareholders passed a motion to reappoint Chairman Akio Toyoda during Toyota Motor's general shareholders' meeting on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 12, 2025

No mention of buyout as Toyota shareholders reappoint Chairman Akio Toyoda

Questions about the privatization of Toyota Industries and Toyoda’s role in it never came up, in stark contrast to earlier this week at Toyota Industries’ annual meeting.
A 250-meter-long bus stop roof using perovskite solar cells in the city of Osaka
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 13, 2025

Government paper seeks to link next-gen energy tech to business opportunities

The white paper stated that Japanese products are leading the world in terms of their durability and larger sizes, which are key features for commercialization.
Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda’s reelection garnered almost 97% of voted shares during the carmaker’s annual meeting, the company said in a statement Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 13, 2025

Toyota chair reclaims support after scandals that hurt last vote

The rebound in Toyoda’s popularity suggest tacit shareholder approval of how he handled the certification issues.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person