It just started? Jobs disappear in Japan/Retail collapse hits Japan's biggest b

verfasst von marsch, 29.09.2001, 09:40

<font size=-3>Friday, 28 September, 2001</font>
Jobs disappear in Japan


Japan's 5% unemployment rate could be just the start

Recession is looking near-inevitable for Japan after a clutch of economic figures showed the country's unemployment rate breaking new records, while consumers remain shy.
Industrial production figures, too, proved disappointing, with a rise in output well short of expectations as companies continued to run down their inventories.

The data demonstrates that well before the economic shock administered by the attacks on the US, Japan was already in dire straits.

"The figures show how severe economic conditions were before 11 September, and it is difficult to assess how much shock the events since then have caused to the economy," said Heizo Takenaka, the country's economics minister.

No more jobs for life

For the fifth month in a row the number of people out of work in Japan climbed, with August 2001 showing a 260,000 rise over the year before.

The total of 3.36m is now over 5% of the workforce.

To make matters worse, the number of jobs on offer is shrinking, with August's figure of 583,510 down 3.6% year on year.

Seasonally adjusted figures for August show 59 jobs for every hundred applicants, down from 60 in July.

Debt crisis

And with bad debts still crippling corporate Japan, economists say things are certain to get worse before they get better.

The banks alone have bad debts estimated at about 150trn yen ($1,250bn), over 30% of gross domestic product.

The government has still to announce exactly how it will tackle the problem, and has launched a private sector experts' panel to advise on the issue.

But whatever happens, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's promise to sort out the issue - which has depressed Japan for a decade - within three years will mean hundreds of thousands more job losses.

Consumer gloom, industrial stagnation

The rest of the economic news was little better.

Industrial production in August rose 0.8% month on month, but the rise fell well short of the consensus forecast by economists of 2.8-3%.

September's figures are forecast by the Ministry of Finance to drop 1.9%.

"The results were extremely poor," said Shinichi Sato, who manages investment strategy at Tokyo Mitsubishi Securities.

Comparing this August with a year ago, he said, production had fallen 11.7%.

"A year-on-year fall of more than 10% had happened only once before in the last 20 years, which was in 1998."

And Japanese consumers are still staying away from the shops, according to the wage earners' households' spending survey.

August's figure showed a 0.8% drop in real terms from the year before, to 326,938 yen ($2,733) - again a five-month straight decline.

Intervention continues

The government is trying to help export businesses by intervening in the money markets seven times in two weeks.

The move has seen the yen drop back towards a rate of 120 to the dollar, having nudged higher earlier in the week.

The finance minister, Masajuro Shiokawa, refused to rule out further activism.

"Given the state of the current economy, which is in a recessionary phase, and given the problem of prices, I have been thinking that a weaker yen would be favourable," he said.

Negative outlook

The figures offer a bleak confirmation of the gloomy outlook presented earlier in September by the government's quarterly economic report.

The report, prepared before the attack on New York and Washington DC, warns that the global slowdown means more pain ahead.

"The economy continues to deteriorate," the report said, in words almost unchanged from the last survey three months earlier.

"The outlook presents worrisome factors, such as a further slowdown in the global economy and the high level of the inventories-to-shipments ratio."







<font size=-3>Sunday, 16 September, 2001</font>
Retail collapse hits Japan's biggest bank


Japan's fourth largest retailer goes bust

The world's largest banking group Mizuho Holdings will post a net loss in the half year to September after Japan's biggest retail collapse since Sogo went under last year.
Mizuho expects its net loss to reach 260bn yen ($2.2bn) as the banking giant takes on huge debts from retailer Mycal, which filed for bankruptcy on Friday.

"We attribute our expected loss mainly to the collapse of Mycal," said spokesman Soichi Hosoi.

Mycal, Japan's fourth-largest supermarket chain operator, filed for court protection from creditors with 1.7 trillion yen ($15bn) in group liabilities.

The failed retailer has now reportedly entered into talks with Wal-Mart over the US retailing giant's financial support for its rehabilitation, news reports in Japan said on Sunday.

Wal-Mart's interest

Mycal is negotiating with both domestic and foreign firms to restore confidence and raise funds.

Earlier Mycal and Wal-Mart talks failed after the US retailer expressed concerns over Mycal's huge debt.

Wal-Mart is reported to be interested again because the filing for court protection is expected to cut the burden of Mycal's interest-bearing debts, the Kyodo News agency said, quoting company sources.

Wal-Mart has some 3,500 locations in the US and more than1,000 in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, China, South Korea, Germany and Britain but none in Japan.

Mycal operates 233 supermarkets, department and other types of stores in Japan.

Total write-off

Mizuho plans to write-off some 150bn of 314bn yen in loans extended to Mycal, a bank spokesman said.

The bank now expects a group pre-tax loss to reach 370bn yen, reversing Mizuho's earlier forecast of 90bn yen in net profit.

Mizuho was created in September last year by a three-way alliance among Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Bank and Industrial Bank of Japan and has total assets of 151 trillion yen.

Mizuho also said it would write off one trillion yen in bad loans in the current fiscal year ending March 2002, up from 800bn yen as planned.

"The disposal of bad loans is vital to make our financial foundation sound and strong," the spokesman said.

In August, Mizuho announced it would get rid of 1.2 trillion yen in bad loans by 2003 as part of restructuring efforts.






<font size=-3>Thursday, 14 June, 2001, 08:41 GMT 09:41 UK </font>
Japan bankruptcies surge


More Japanese businesses are being forced to close

The number of Japanese bankruptcies surged by 5.7% in May, the highest number of failures this year.


Japan could be on the brink of another recession

The gloomy news - which revealed that 1,724 firms went bust in May - was produced by independent research agency Teikoku Databank.

"Recession-induced bankruptcies totalled 1,326 cases, the second highest record ever," said the report.

The level of bankruptcies is 12.8% higher than for the same month last year, as the downturn in the economy begins to take hold.

The increase in bankruptcies will weigh heavily on Japan's struggling banking sector which will lose any money that has been lent to these firms.

Recession fears

Liabilities from May topped one trillion yen for the fourth consecutive month, although the sum is 2.5% lower than the previous month.

The latest figures suggest that Japan is on the brink of another recession, with the economy shrinking during the first three months of the year.

Japan was last in recession at the end of 1999 when it showed signs of being strong enough to pull itself out of the cycle of 11 years of negative economic growth.

But since then, the global economic slowdown has sent Japan's economy spiralling back down.

The gloomy picture threatens to undermine Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reforms aimed at reining in government debt.

Bank of Japan meets

Economics Minister Heizon Takenaka said on Thursday that Japan could not afford to delay reforms and dismissed suggestions that the economy was too weak to withstand drastic fiscal tightening.

He also noted the GDP growth of 0.9% in the year ending in March, and said that some smaller firms are bound to fail if they cannot withstand the current economic environment.

The Bank of Japan began a two day policy meeting on Thursday, but have asked the government not to put the pressure on for a further easing of monetary policy.

Gloom over the bankruptcies led the banking subindex on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to fall to a two and a half year low.


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gesamter Thread:

• @dottore: Arbeiten Sie da an Mosaiksteinchen einer - Galiani, 28.09.2001, 18:19
  • Re: Ja, lieber Galiani, genau so ist es! - dottore, 28.09.2001, 20:20
    • Re: Ja, lieber Galiani, genau so ist es! - Jagg, 28.09.2001, 21:39
      • Zeitachse: Das Grosse Raetsel. Bei Japan schon seit 10 Jahren und immer - Josef, 28.09.2001, 22:27
        • Re: Zeitachse: Das Grosse Raetsel. Bei Japan schon seit 10 Jahren und immer - Jagg, 28.09.2001, 22:55
        • It just started? Jobs disappear in Japan/Retail collapse hits Japan's biggest b - marsch, 29.09.2001, 09:40