Foreign automakers sold 23,376 vehicles in Japan in February, up 2.5% on the year, according to data released on March 6 by the Japan Automobile Importers Association. This marks the eleventh straight month of growth, driven by sales of clean diesel cars with improved environmental performance. Also, foreign cars made up 7.5% of domestic new car sales, excluding minicars.   Mercedes-Benz….Read more

Asahi wrote that Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Seko spoke by phone with Secretary of Commerce Ross on Monday and confirmed his plan to visit the U.S. for talks with the secretary ahead of the first meeting of the new U.S.-Japan economic dialogue slated for mid-April. The two officials reportedly did not discuss bilateral trade in detail. Seko told reporters….Read more

Asahi wrote that in a speech delivered on Monday, National Trade Council Director Navarro expressed his readiness to move forward with bilateral trade negotiations with Japan and the UK in addition to renegotiating NAFTA. The paper wrote that the U.S. is likely to take up the issue at the U.S.-Japan economic dialogue to be led by Vice President Pence and….Read more

Nikkei wrote that Keidanren established a new taskforce to collect information about the Trump administration’s economic policy and analyze it in late February. Some 15 companies from a wide range of industries, including auto manufacturers, trading houses, and financial institutions, are participating in the working group. Keidanren plans to send a mission to the U.S. in May, and Chairman Sakakibara….Read more

Shantanu Edgaonkar was crowned winner of the eighth Japan Times Bee on Saturday, earning the right to represent Japan at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington in May.   “I feel really great,” the 13-year-old seventh-grader from Global Indian International School in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, said.   The contest, held at the headquarters of The Japan Times in Tokyo’s….Read more

Japan’s core consumer prices rose 0.1 percent from a year earlier in January on a rebound in oil prices, marking the first growth in 13 months and offering a sign that inflation could pick up in the coming months.   The core consumer price index, excluding volatile fresh food prices, stood at 99.6 against the 2015 base of 100, following….Read more

Yamato Holdings Co. plans to retroactively pay employees for unpaid overtime in an effort to address tough working conditions faced by delivery drivers and other staff amid a manpower shortage, the company said Saturday.   The holding company of Yamato Transport Co., a door-to-door parcel delivery provider, will make the payments after determining the amount of wages owed in a….Read more

On the Senate confirmation of Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Saturday morning’s Mainichi predicted that the Trump administration will reverse the Obama administration’s “pro-environment” policy and promote the domestic energy industry, as the new energy chief is apparently skeptical of global warming. The daily wrote that Japan is paying keen attention to the USG’s new energy policy in the belief that….Read more

All Saturday morning papers reported on the conclusion in Kobe on Friday of a meeting of the chief negotiators for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, noting that they failed to forge a consensus on anything despite intense discussions over five days on import tariffs, intellectual property protection, and investment rules. Japan, Australia, and New Zealand were at odds with China….Read more