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August 31, 2025
 

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INFLATION

Hironori Kamezawa, chief executive officer of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, speaks during an interview at the company's headquarters in Tokyo on Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 5, 2025
BOJ rate hike in September or October is 'desirable,' MUFG chief says
Such a hike is ideal in the face of strong inflation in the country.
Amid rising prices for food and other items, a government panel has proposed a record hike in the average minimum wage.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 5, 2025
Amid inflation, Japanese government panel proposes record ¥63 minimum wage hike
The recommendation by the panel, which advises the labor minister, would raise the average minimum wage to ¥1,118 per hour.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) talks with rice farmers in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, on July 11.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Aug 4, 2025
Japan seeks to ditch rice output curbs after price surges
Currently, the government provides subsidies to farmers to encourage them to restrict rice production and switch to other crops to prevent an oversupply.
BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda speaks during a news conference at the central bank's headquarters in Tokyo on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 3, 2025
BOJ watchers bring forward next rate hike call after trade deals
The view has emerged after clarity over trade increased with U.S. President Donald Trump announcing deals, including one with Japan.
Bags of newly harvested Koshihikari brand rice are sold at a supermarket in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2025
Japan's first rice crop of 2025 goes on sale at high prices
Rice prices may remain high even after autumn, leading consumers to struggle with their food spending.
The price increases in August will be especially noticeable for dairy products, including milk and yogurt, according to the research firm Teikoku Databank.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 31, 2025
1,010 food and beverage prices to rise in Japan in August
The price increases in August will be especially noticeable for dairy products, including milk and yogurt.
The Bank of Japan kept the overnight call rate at 0.5% at the end of a two-day policy meeting in a unanimous vote, according to a statement Thursday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 31, 2025
BOJ keeps rates unchanged and lifts price view after U.S. trade deal
While the changes in the outlook suggested Gov. Kazuo Ueda’s board is closer to its next rate hike, the central bank also avoided dropping any clear hints as to the exact timing.
The agriculture ministry believes the increase in rice distributed through new channels with higher transaction prices is one of the factors behind the rice price surge since last summer.
BUSINESS
Jul 30, 2025
Varied sales channels may have triggered rice price surge
The amount of 2024 rice shipped from producers to major buyers dealing with farmers fell by 340,000 metric tons from the previous year.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda. The central bank is expected to remain cautious until the fall.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 29, 2025
Bank of Japan likely to hold key rate at 0.5% as tariff breakthrough evaluated
Political uncertainty may also weigh on the policy board's decision this week.
Kazuhiko Shigetoku (second from left), policy chief of the Constitutional Democratic Party, speaks at a meeting of opposition party policy leaders discussing a bill to scrap the provisional add-on gasoline tax rate, on Tuesday at parliament.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 29, 2025
Eight opposition parties agree to push for extra gasoline tax to be scrapped
The opposition parties are hoping to raise public expectations for political change after the ruling coalition lost its majority in the recent Upper House election.
A bottle of Suntory's Yamazaki whisky
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 29, 2025
Suntory will gauge U.S. consumer sentiment for whisky price hike
CEO Takeshi Niinami also said the company is "overreliant on the U.S. and Japan” and has realized the importance of emerging markets.
Hideyuki Okamoto, ice pop maker Akagi Nyugyo's marketing team leader, says the public is more accepting of price hikes as he holds the company's flagship Garigari-kun ice pop.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Jul 29, 2025
Enough apologies: How Japan is shaking off its price hike phobia
A shift in consumer mindset about such increases is driven by the biggest pay hikes in three decades and has given companies more confidence to pass on rising costs.
Prolonged high prices for food and other goods have pushed down consumer sentiment and real wages, according to the Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finance for fiscal 2025.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 29, 2025
Japan should take all possible measures to raise wages, white paper says
Prolonged high prices for food and other goods have pushed down consumer sentiment and real wages, while predictions for continued price climbs have curbed consumption.
With tariffs at an 80-year high and the U.S. dollar behaving unpredictably, the Fed should hold off on cutting rates until there’s clear evidence that inflation remains under control.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2025
The Fed needs to tread carefully with this strange dollar
Given that range of possibilities, it’s prudent to wait for the data to tell the story, exactly as Fed Chair Jerome Powell is currently planning.
While the pace of gains in consumer prices in the capital slowed in July from a year earlier, the data send a fresh reminder that households are still coping with higher living costs overall.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 25, 2025
Tokyo inflation slows while staying well above BOJ’s target
A decline in utility costs helped slow the overall gauge, but households are still coping with higher living costs overall.
International Monetary Fund spokesperson Julie Kozack said any fiscal stimulus measures Japan takes to address economic shocks should be temporary and targeted at vulnerable households and companies, during a news conference on Thursday in Washington.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 25, 2025
IMF advises Japan to avoid broad tax cuts and handouts
Tackling inflation was a major campaign issue in the Upper House race, with opposition parties having called for reducing or abolishing the consumption tax.
The diffusion index on living conditions in Japan is at its lowest level in nearly 16 years.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 24, 2025
Japan might be in a technical recession already
GDP appears to have declined for a second consecutive quarter, while wages remain stagnant and consumer sentiment weak.
Among respondents who took part in at least one spare-time activity in 2024, "domestic pleasure trip" saw the highest participation rate of 48.3%, according to the 2025 Leisure White Paper released by the Japan Productivity Center.
JAPAN
Jul 22, 2025
Japanese love leisure more than ever but turn thrifty
Those who said they attached importance to leisure rather than to work, including study, last year accounted for the highest reading since comparable data became available in 2009.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who serves concurrently as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, waves to voters from atop an election campaign van during a rally Friday in Yokohama for Sunday's Upper House election.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 19, 2025
Ishiba's future in balance as polls hint at rout in Upper House election
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba likes the nitty gritty of policy, cigarettes and making models, but his dream job as Japanese leader could go up in smoke this weekend.
Food banks are struggling to secure rice and other food items to distribute to people in need as inflation has put a dent in donations.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 18, 2025
As rice shortage hits donations, food banks urge politicians to tackle poverty
Food banks are struggling to secure rice and other food items to distribute to people in need as inflation has put a dent in donations.
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Japan to launch broad review of immigration policies amid rise in foreign nationals
Foreign tourists at Narita Airport in June. A report released Friday stresses that Japan is at a turning point and that current ad-hoc measures on immigration are no longer sufficient.
Top Japan trade negotiator canceled U.S. trip over rice, report says
Ryosei Akazawa
Most Japanese teens struggling with school find end of summer ‘painful’
Some 93.1% of Japanese teenagers who struggle with school life said they felt like they “wanted to disappear from the world" at the end of summer vacation ahead of the start of a new term, according to a recent survey released by Yokohama-based nonprofit Daisan Kazoku.
Most Trump tariffs are not legal, U.S. appeals court rules
Workers hang a large poster of U.S. President Donald Trump on the facade of the Department of Labor headquarters building in Washington on Wednesday.
Japan to launch broad review of immigration policies amid rise in foreign nationals
Foreign tourists at Narita Airport in June. A report released Friday stresses that Japan is at a turning point and that current ad-hoc measures on immigration are no longer sufficient.
Japan is warming up to tattoos — just not permanent ones
Tattoos have a complex history in Japan, but new types of temporary ink are letting locals curious about body art experiment without the commitment.
YouTube Music Weekend is where Japan’s internet-born performers go global
Headlining the second day of YouTube Music Weekend is Vocaloid artist Kikuo, who, with 1.46 million YouTube subscribers, is one of the most popular artists in the genre.
Japan looks to build drone ‘shield’ in record defense budget request
A group of Ground Self-Defense Force service members discuss drone operations and capabilities at a joint static display during the Orient Shield 24 opening ceremony at the Yausubetsu Training Area in Hokkaido in July last year.
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.

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