Japan This Week 1/06/08

今週の日本

Japanese rethinking education, and looking to India.

NY Times

Tokyo rated by Independent Newspaper as the "capital of Asia."

Japan Times

37,000 year-old frozen baby mammoth goes on display in Tokyo.

The Daily Yomiuri

After PM Fukuda's visit to Beijing, whither Japan-China relations?

The People's Daily

Killer Mochi (sticky rice cakes) strikes again.

Mainichi Shinbun

Special service at Osaka dental clinic.

Mainichi Shinbun

The Japanese government takes over the chairmanship of the G8 group of industrialized nations on January 1st.

BBC

Japanese company offers "pet allowance."

BBC

With a conviction rate of 99%, Japan's legal system is about change.

Channel 4 News

Last week's Japan news

Japan Statistics

2007 traffic fatalities in Japan were the lowest in 54 Years. The death toll was 5,743, which was a 9.6 percent drop from the previous year. Police attribute this to the new Road Traffic Law, which took effect in September.

Source: Kyodo News

Births top out at 1.1 million in 2007. According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, Japan's fertility rate in 2007 is expected to rise slightly to 1.33.

Source: The Daily Yomiuri

According to Seven-Eleven, one of Japan's major convenience store chains, about 50% of its customers complete their purchase in 3 minutes or less, and 80% within 5 minutes – times that are getting shorter and shorter, making it more difficult to direct customers' attention to new products. With a male to female customer ratio of 6:4, Seven-Eleven attracts more female customers than Lawson's, where the ratio is 7:3. Too bad for Lawson: women's average convenience store budget is 582 yen – 30 yen higher than for males.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reports that 50% of customers sense that food prices have been rising in Japan lately, most notably for oil and salad dressing, vegetables, and instant products. To address the problem, most consumers would like to see a reduction in the amount of packaging – a factor of merchandising in Japan that often seems excessive.

In line with the law passed in April 2007 which aims to increase the number of children Japanese women have, major mobile phone provider Softbank Corp. is offering its employees a 50,000 yen bonus for the birth of a first child, 100,000 yen for the next, a million yen for the third, 3 million for the fourth, and 5 million for every child thereafter.


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