Sankei gave top play to reports that the GOJ decided at a meeting of relevant ministries and agencies on Monday that companies taking part in government procurement will be required to respect human rights and not be involved in forced labor. Such companies will be required to specify in writing that they will strive to respect human rights. Sankei wrote that Japan….Read more

TBS reported that Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Nishimura announced today that Japan will tighten controls on exports of some chip manufacturing equipment to prevent it from being diverted to military use amid the intensifying conflict between the United States and China. The network said Japan will tighten controls on exports of 23 items related to advanced chip manufacturing.….Read more

All national dailies reported on Saturday or Sunday that the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC) concluded on Friday its annual session to review Pacific saury stocks. According to the papers, Japan, China, South Korea, and six other nations and regions in the NPFC agreed to reduce the Pacific saury catch by about 25% to 250,000 tons a year. The new catch….Read more

Mainichi and Yomiuri reported on Saturday that the Japan Fisheries Agency announced on Friday that Japan concluded an agreement with Russia on salmon and trout fishing within Japan’s EEZ for 2023. According to the papers, Japanese fishing boats can catch a total of 2,050 tons of salmon and trout coming from Russian rivers this year, the same as last year. In….Read more

The Saturday editions of Nikkei and all other national dailies reported that the GOJ decided on Friday to update Japan’s immigration regulations in the hope of luring world-class talent, including reducing the waiting period for high-earning professionals to obtain permanent residency. The dailies said the updated regulations, which the GOJ plans to implement in April, will allow researchers and engineers who make….Read more

The Bank of Japan (BOJ), which is supposed to be committed to stabilizing the financial market, is instead causing turmoil. Inconsistencies in the Japanese central bank’s monetary policy stand out, with the framework of its large-scale monetary easing approaching its limit.   In December last year, the BOJ revised its policy to raise the long-term interest rate cap to around….Read more

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has revised its radical monetary easing in what could be billed as a policy turnaround prompted by mounting criticism that the policy pushed the yen into freefall this past autumn. The central bank decided to raise the long-term interest rate cap to around 0.5% from the previous 0.25%. BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda told a press….Read more

TV Asahi reported on the decision by the Bank of Japan to expand the trading range for long-term Japanese government bond yields from the current range of minus 0.25% and 0.25% to minus 0.5% and 0.5%. Because the step is equivalent to an interest rate hike, speculation is rife that it marks the “beginning of the end” of the Japanese….Read more