Tokyo Haneda Airports Users: Ideas Later.

Tokyo's Haneda airport tops 90 million users for 1st time in 2025

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260129/p2g/00m/0bu/016000c

Article to be deleted after ideas.

Article:

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The number of travelers using Tokyo's Haneda airport for domestic and international flights surpassed 90 million for the first time in 2025, driven by a surge in inbound tourism, the transport ministry said Wednesday.

Japan's busiest airport saw about 91.43 million travelers last year, a 6.7 percent increase from the previous year, although domestic travelers have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, it also reached the maximum slot limit of around 490,000 takeoffs and landings.

About 67.10 million people flew on domestic flights, up 5.5 percent from a year earlier, while international travelers rose 10.1 percent to a record high of around 24.33 million.

Passenger numbers on routes to and from China declined, while those to and from Hong Kong and Taiwan surged.

As it will no longer be possible to increase the number of takeoffs and landings at Haneda, the growing burden from inbound tourism will likely fall on Narita airport near Tokyo, a transport ministry official said.

Narita airport in Chiba Prefecture is undergoing a project to enhance its capacity by extending an existing runway and building a new one, which is expected to increase the number of takeoffs and landings from 340,000 to 500,000.

JAL sales in April-Dec. Update Feb. 7, 2026.

JAL sales in April-Dec. at record 1.51 tril. yen on firm inbound tourism

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260203/p2g/00m/0bu/029000c

Ideas

Both JAL and ANA should be seeing record sales and even record profits at this time as Japan is experiencing unseen records in foreign tourists entering Japan this past year. 

Of course maybe other airlines too are seeing record numbers as foreign tourists just keep going to Japan which might or might be at the saturation point yet for sustainable numbers.

It's interesting that Japan is not really that big of a country and travel from Hokkaido to Okinawa is really not that far but there seems to be a lot of domestic plane travel in Japan along with a lot of shinkansen or bullet train travel in Japan too.

At around 125 million people Japan is densely populated country and face to face business meetings is still an important component of doing business in Japan as Zoom and Microsoft teams have not completely taken over the business meeting aspect of business people meeting each other in Japan.

And yes, the situation with China is a little iffy right now as Japan and China once again are having challenges and travel from China to Japan has again taken a back seat to Chinese tourists visiting Japan.

Yes, a decrease in demand 20 to 25 percent might be considered significant but the overall effect might not be that bad as all other countries seem to be filling the gap as again there are a record numbers of foreign tourists entering Japan and JAL and both ANA might be getting their share of bookings these days.

China seems to be specialize in group bookings as maybe there is/are safety in numbers as maybe they prefer to travel in groups while other foreign tourists might prefer to travel alone or with one or two people only not in large groups.

For good or bad, intentional or unintentional, Japan every few years keeps making the same mistakes that upset both China or South Korea or both at the same time.

And again it's going to take some time before the situation calms down as always it seems to work itself out one way or another.

While its hopeful that they appetite to travel to Japan will return its not highly likely as what the powers to be say in China still resonates with a large part of the population but there are always the adventurous ones who might travel to Japan and ignore the powers to be.

More and more Chinese travelers, as has been suggested, are now not traveling in large groups but traveling on their own to places such as Japan or even South Korea these days.

JAL and maybe ANA too seem to have a good balance between domestic bookings and domestic bookings which complement each other and when one part is a little down the other part might be a little up which keeps the profits sustainable.

The only real grip, and its global, as ever since the pandemic or the end of the pandemic ticket prices have increased significantly and of course so has demand.

And unfortunately, airlines are a business so they always talk about customer service but in reality good customer service seems to be eroding in many airlines these days as they seem to be nit-picking with fee increases for luggage, fee increases for seats, and fee increases for whatever they feel they can get away with without regard or caring about the customers.

And yes, again, airlines are a business and as a business they have to maintain a certain level of profit to keep shareholder happy which unfortunately means due to fuel price increases, increases in demand, and increase in a number or areas they increase tickets prices.

And then there is there the segmentation of airline tickets to increase profits by separating the prices of aisle seats and window seats, segmenting premium economy from standard economy and who knows what else airlines do to get as much profit as they can from the customer.

JAL and ANA, while known for quality customer service do the same thing with many things related to the segmentation of customers as again they need to maximize profit as much as possible.

These budget carriers seem to always be having their ownership changed from one company to the next as they just can't seem to find the right business model and just are not sustainable in the long run.'

JAL already has some affiliate budget airline or regional airlines and there is only a limited number of resources and unfortunately budget airlines are always being sold or revived every few years or so it seems.

And yes, as expected JAL will probably transform jetstar into a new brand or something new version of the brand which seems to be quite common these days for budget airlines.

The barriers to entry for new budget airlines seems to be quite high and most just don't last that long no matter what they do, as they are only a limited number of travelers and if there are too many airlines and even too many budget airlines unfortunately the weak get left behind.

Of course name-brand loyalty is a major hurdle for any budget airline to overcome as flying with ANA or Japan in Japan, United or Delta in the US, or Korea Air in South Korea and or any of the name-brand Chinese airlines in China is a lot more earlier and maybe safer but maybe not easy on the budget.

Have a nice day!

Japan Farm Exports: Ideas Later.

Japan's annual farm exports rise to new record 1.7 trillion yen

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260203/p2g/00m/0bu/030000c

Article to be deleted after ideas.

Article:

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japanese exports of agriculture, forestry and fishery products and foods rose to over 1.7 trillion yen ($10.9 billion) in 2025, renewing the record for the 13th straight year, amid expansions of worldwide popularity of washoku, or Japanese cuisine, the farm ministry said Tuesday.

Amid heightened health awareness, green tea exports doubled from the previous year, and exports of 20 major items, including beef and rice, reached record high, contributing to a 12.8 percent year-on-year increase, according to the ministry.

But the exports fell short of the government's target of 2 trillion yen in 2025, with continuous efforts to develop export markets deemed indispensable as the government aims for 5 trillion yen in exports in 2030.

By country and region, the United States was the top destination at 276.2 billion yen, up 13.7 percent, on the back of strong demand for green tea and seafood that are considered healthy food, despite higher tariffs imposed since April last year.

Hong Kong came in second at 222.8 billion yen followed by Taiwan at 181.2 billion yen, while China, which has reimposed suspension of Japanese seafood imports amid a diplomatic row, ranked fourth at 179.9 billion yen.

Exports to China rose for the first time in three years, up 7.0 percent, driven by notable increases of beer and timber logs.

By volume, rice exports rose 3.2 percent from the previous year to 46,573 tons. Those of packaged precooked rice soared 21.8 percent to 2,950 tons, due in part to consumption expansions at Japanese chain restaurants overseas.

The government aims to boost annual rice exports, including packaged rice and rice flour, to 353,000 tons in 2030.

"We need to expand our destinations to popular local restaurants" in addition to chain restaurants operated by Japanese firms, an official of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said.

Japan 2025 Industrial Output: Updated Feb. 6, 2026.

Japan's 2025 industrial output rises 0.8%, 1st increase in 4 years

Article source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260130/p2g/00m/0bu/011000c

Ideas

Japan still seems to be a heavy industrial manufacturing economy even though, like most advanced economies has transitioned into a services and technology country.

With that said Japan still seems to think that manufacturing is the key to economic growth, next to China, its still heavily dependent on manufacturing and industrial development.

Because Japan is so heavily focused on the manufacturing of good its hasn't really developed much in terms of software as Japan still relies on the US for much of its software, which has become a major source challenge for the economy and businesses in Japan. 

Auto production in Japan is an economic driver and at this time might be the only real economic driver that improves the economy.

And economic drivers is any economic activity that over the long-term improve the growth of the economy.

Some might say foreign tourism is another possible economic driver as it too has seen record number of foreign tourists going to Japan, but tourism, unfortunately is very susceptible to swings, as for example now there is the supposed boycott of Chinese tourists going to Japan, which China at one time used to be Japan's largest group, being next door to Japan.

The only thing that Japanese producers can do is endure the situation as maybe someday it can get back to some kind of normal or at least a new normal as the phrase was always used during the pandemic as a way to try to normalize the situation.

The tariff situation, unfortunately, is here for another three years and who knows what is going to happen exactly in the future, but companies need to just keep moving forward and stockholders and others just need to be aware that the profits of the companies they invest in might not get the same return as before.

Yes, uncertainty is always going to be there, even in the best of times as their always going to be potential pitfalls in demand, supply chains, material costs increasing and even government interference in some countries to name a few things.

All a company can do is assess the situation the best they can and keep moving forward with maybe focused on less growth or less profits as a way to get through the challenging times.

Inventories are both positive and negatives depending on which side of the coin you like, as for example a decrease in inventories could be demand for a companies products were higher than expected and or the estimate demand was not estimated correctly which happens some times.

And then there is the idea of too much inventory sitting in a company's warehouse or on the docks of a port such as LA or Long Beach in the US, as importers in the US or suppliers int he US don't need as much of the product but the company went ahead and continued to manufacture and send the product to the US hoping demand would change.

And at the same time, high levels of inventories has the potential too signal the beginning of some kind of recession as means for a product or products if it is sector wide might be a challenge for an economy.

The industrial output dropping to 101. 8 doesn't really mean much as there is not that much of a statistical variance other than maybe as December in Japan had a long year end holiday that might have been the reason for the drop in output.

But then again, the US tariff situation and the Chinese economy situation good be having an affect on production and manufacturing in Japan but even with a 2.7 percent drop in November its still not that significant yet.

Yes, production can and does fluctuate indecisively, as there always demand challenges, supply challenges with supply chain breakdowns, material costs increases, and equipment repairs and breakdowns at manufacturing plants.

As there are 15 industrial sectors, like an economy being highly complex, not all industrial sectors are going to be positive at the same time, as again, demand and supply chain challenges have a big say in how much is produced and what gets to the markets either in Japan or globally.

Hopefully, as again as car manufacturing in Japan is the main economic driver, demand for Japanese cars are still in high demand as the Japanese economy depends on the production and sale of cars.

And at the same time, its unfortunate, that Japan has been unable to develop any more significant economic drivers that can help move the economy forward, as it seems back into the late 80's or early 90's it seemed to almost give up being competitive in producing products that appealed to consumers globally.

Also has its very apparent South Korea, Taiwan, and China has replaced Japan as a producer of quality products wanted and needed by consumers globally, as Samsung in South Korea, Asus, and Acer in Taiwan, and now many Chinese quality products are being developed as it seems Japan just doesn't have the will to try and match these products these days that these countries produce.

Again, an economy is very complex and every sector or every industry is not going to be positive all the time as there are always going to be challenges related to demand and supply chain problems but a company has to learn how to overcome the challenges and at the same time but into place ways to overcome the scenarios when they do occur as no sector or no industry or no company is exempt from unexpected challenges.

The industrial shipments being at 98.7 is not really bad but its not really good too as maybe again, the Chinese economy situation and the US tariff situation could have affected the industrial shipment situation in Japan.

And again the inventory situation at 98.3 too is not good but also not bad and the Chinese situation and the US tariff situation might have reduced demand somewhat as maybe there were some supply chain challenges that reduced shipments and increased inventories at some companies in Japan.

Have a nice nice day!

Japan Private Rice Imports: Ideas Later.

Japan's private rice imports rise 96-fold to hit record high in 2025

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260129/p2g/00m/0na/039000c

Article to be deleted after ideas.

Article:

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's private rice imports hit a record high of 96,779 tons in 2025, marking around a whopping 96-fold increase from the previous year as the price of domestically produced rice remains elevated, government data showed Thursday.

The surge from 1,008 tons in 2024 came despite the Japanese government implementing a tariff of 341 yen ($2.20) per kilogram on privately imported rice, with prices still comparatively cheaper than local alternatives.

According to the Finance Ministry's trade statistics, rice imports gradually rose from last January and peaked in July at 26,349 tons, before trending downward from August. The annual volume was the largest since comparable data became available in 2000.

The United States was the number one source, accounting for 75,638 tons, followed by Taiwan at 7,024 tons and Vietnam at 4,515 tons.

Japan currently imports some 770,000 tons of rice annually tariff-free under its minimum access commitment based on World Trade Organization rules.

Of that, up to 100,000 tons are destined for the private sector for staple food use. The private imports came on top of this tariff-free quota.

Japan Jobless Rate: Updated Feb. 5, 2026.

Japan's jobless rate in 2025 stays at 2.5% as tight job market continue

Article source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260130/p2g/00m/0bu/009000c

Ideas:

Japan has one of the lowest unemployment rates among advanced nations as now there is a supposed tight labor market, more people are getting jobs and or able to change jobs much easier than before.

An economy will never have zero percent unemployment as there are always going to be eligible workers in and out of the job market related to lay-offs, workers quitting, some retired people who later change their mind and re-enter the job market and so on.

Even though there was a record high for employed people Japan still suffers to with a so-called labor shortage and maybe there are some sectors or jobs that Japanese people just don't want to do.

Its like in South Korea, where there are some jobs such as some manufacturing jobs in small companies and or in the farm sector that South Korean workers just won't do so South Korea has to bring in foreign labor or do those kind of jobs.

But it might be the same in the US related to some sectors which can't afford or won't pay high enough wages to get US workers so the have to rely on foreigners and unfortunately illegal aliens to do the work.

Yes as more opportunities are now available for women in the Japanese workforce and of course as inflation has reduced the disposable incomes of Japanese households more women now need to work to make ends meet.

And even more there are more jobs available for the elderly as they either can't afford to retire and or just want to keep working to remain healthy. But at the same time it seems there are many more elderly workers in Japan than some other economies and that might be a sign of how healthy Japanese citizens are compared to other citizens in other countries.

Yes, as in most labor markets or economies there are the unemployed who willing to work and are included as they are part of those who are unemployed but want to work but haven't been able to find work yet.

And yes, there are always positives and negatives in any economic situation such at an economies labor market, which might have some blind spots that might cause some or many to not be employed.

And yes, while an increase in wages is a positive for the Japanese economy at the same time inflation has continued on in Japan which again, as eroded the disposable income of Japanese households.

And there there is the idea that it it estimated that up to to 70 percent of the Japanese workforce don't work for large name-brand companies but small and mid-size companies which can't afford to pay or won't pay the same wage increases that the large companies pay which means again up to 70 percent of Japanese workers might have lower disposable incomes compared to those who work in the large companies in Japan.

Back in the day, maybe yes, maybe no, Japan rarely has layoffs or those who were dismissed except for maybe those working for small and mid-size companies that went out of business.

But today, with Japanese companies and the Japanese economy adapting more western style work concepts lay-offs and those being dismissed seem to be more common today than before.

And up to 750,000 left their job voluntarily is a good indication that there are a lot of jobs out there in job market and workers are taking advantage of the fact that they can easily find a new job and or they want a job with a higher wage due to the continued inflation challenge in Japan.

While 1.22 jobs are available or 122 jobs for every 100 workers might sound positive it must be remembered just what kinds of jobs are available for  workers.

Its quite possible that some or many of the best jobs might have already been filled and those looking for jobs are left with those jobs in small and mid-size companies that either can't afford the kind of wages that workers are looking for or won't pay or increase their wages to get new workers.

Yes, the minimum wage situation might be a negative for most economies except of course for some or many of the EU countries which tend to have better working conditions including better wage for those at the lower end the wage scale.

Japan is now experiencing what South Korea experienced back around 2015 to 2020 as the South Korean government implemented a series of yearly step by step minimum wage increase as a way to lesson the challenges for small and mid-size companies but in the end it was not that much of a success.

What happened was many of the small and mid-size companies, as a way to maintain their profit margins, started laying-off workers, reducing the hours of part-time or low wage workers, reduced the hiring of new workers, and in some case started using robots and or automated pay systems in store to cut costs.

An increase of 0.01 points is not that much or could be considered in the range of statistical variance as that is not much of a real change in jobs availability for any economy.

As far as jobs opening in the education sector that easily can be attributed to after school tutoring companies increasing the number of tutors as Japanese households wanted more tutoring for their children related to the exams needed to get into private schools and or to get into more prestigious universities in Japan.

For the manufacturing sector its quite possible as the US tariff situation seems to have lessened or the affect have lessened more manufacturing companies are now hiring workers to meet the demands for their products.

And or as there is a labor shortage in Japan, manufacturing companies have increased their wages, as needed, to get more workers as some Japanese workers don't want to work in the manufacturing sector so companies had  to increase their wages in order to be the workers they need.

It's quite possible, as with other economies too, many information and communication companies in Japan increased the number of worker they had to meet the demands for their services, but now, as with other economies, many information and communication companies are beginning or have already laid-off many of the workers that were needed during the pandemic, such as Zoom being the prime example and just recently Amazon has laid-off a lot workers too.

For the hotel and restaurant sector its possible too that they over-hired just after the pandemic and as the surge of foreign visitors keep increasing hotels and restaurants continued to hire new workers but now due to increased material and energy costs compromising their profits margins they have ceased hiring new workers and or even began to lay-off workers.

Have a nice day!

• Font Size
• Print
• • Timeline
  • 0

• 
  

BOJ leaves benchmark unchanged: Updated Feb. 4, 2026.

BOJ leaves benchmark interest rate unchanged at policy meeting

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260123/p2g/00m/0bu/020000c

Ideas

For a long time, the BOJ suggested that the Japanese economy is/was just too weak for any rate increases as it would significantly affect businesses, consumers, households, and even banks in Japan.

While never really mentioned that much the weak Japanese yen has always been seen as a boom for the large Japanese export companies, as the weak yen, improves their profits as at the time significantly improves Japan's current account which the Japanese government uses for many of its programs.

The two percent target rate as been an elusive target for much of the last decade if not longer and it seems while the BOJ might be inching closer to it, its still a target that is not out of reach but at the same time, not achievable just yet.

Most central banks would prefer the inflation rate would be around 2 percent as they feel its at a manageable level and the economy is not overheating and or not stagnating as the flow of money through the economy is a a reasonable pace.

To be fair, over the past decade, or longer, many former Prime Ministers have tried to use stimulus packages to get the economy moving in the right direction but mostly without much success except for maybe in the short-term only.

As the new Prime Minister is a fiscal and monetary dove, it might mean there is going to be more government spending to try and get the economy moving in the right direction and the BOJ's decision not to increase the key rate might have been a result of being influenced by the new Prime Minister not to increase the key rate which potentially could stifle business spending, consumer and household spending.

The Japanese economy is now considered a mature economy which don't grow that much as even at 0.9 percent or even 1.0 percent that would be a significant achievement as the Japanese economy, for many years was in a quasi-stagnant phase with little to no economic growth.

Japanese businesses and investors need to understand that the Japanese economy is not going to grow like China ever again like the US economy ever again as mature economies just don't have the needed resources to grow like emerging economies do and or it takes a significant increase in resources to grow a mature economy like it did when it was a emerging economy.

It sounds like the current language used by the BOJ related to inflation and the global economy,while not really negative, is aimed as not being too pessimistic as it doesn't want to upset the financial markets in Japan or globally too.

And yes, as Japan is a resource-poor country, global prices and the weak Japanese yen is still going to be factor of importers and the domestic economy in Japan in the future despite the BOJ suggesting inflation might get down to 1.9 percent in 2026.

It appears, as usual, the BOJ is still being very cautious and still sees the economy as being too weak to increase the key rate to much as it might affect, again, businesses, consumers, households, and even banks with a too high key rate increase.

There are always to kinds of inflation moving through an economy as its quite possible that might be happening in Japan at the same time. One kind of inflation, which is very common in Japan is inflation related to the increase or prices due to the increase in costs related to energy and raw materials that companies need to conduct business.

The other kind of inflation, which may or may not be that evident the kind of inflation due to increased consumer demand as business will generally increase prices if they see or feel consumers are buying more of their products.

But to be fair, it seems the first kind of inflation, in Japan, recently is what has been happening for a very long time as maybe consumer spending has been less than optimal for the economy.

Again, the BOJ's 2 percent target has been elusive a very long time and there is trying to estimate what is going to happen in 2027 might be too much as a lot can happen in year in an economy as the BOJ's track record related to estimations hasn't been that significant recently.

But then again estimations are not an exact science or an exact statistical measure as there are just too many variables that can change change within a years time.

And yes, for sure, while the new Prime Minister is a fiscal and monetary dove, there might be more stimulus packages that are going to be presented as a way to improve the economy, businesses, and even Japanese households in the future.

The last two sales tax increases in Japan in 2014 from 5 to 8 percent and then in 2019 from 8 to 10 percent were not very popular by Japanese households or consumers as they significantly reduced their spending but of course over time got used the increase in the sales tax.

The increase in the sales tax in 2014 and 2019 were attempts to use the sales tax as a way reduce the already bloated government debt which was among the highest, if not the highest at 250 percent of GDP, among advanced nations, as the sales tax increases have had a minimal effect on the reduction of the government debt in Japan.

And to be sure the weak Japanese yen, while both a positive and negative for the Japanese economy has been maybe more of negative recently as maybe it has affect the domestic economy a more that helping the economy.

Because Japan is resource-poor economy it has to import much of what it needs and the weak Japanese yen, increases the price of import products into Japan, which means importer and wholesalers will and or passing-on the higher prices for import price through the supply chain which of course means even retail customers are seeing significant increase in prices in Japan.

While at the same time, the large name-brand Japanese export companies see significant increases in the price of their products in overseas markets but how much does it really help the domestic economy and the average Japanese household in Japan.

Have a nice day!