BizCast Japan #12: Tourism, Part-Time Workers, Blu-Ray, Panasonic, Seiyu, Japan Air Lines and Wheat Prices
Welcome to the twelfth edition of BizCast Japan. In this edition of the program, co-hosts Albrecht Stahmer and Ken Worsley start off by discussing tourism to Japan. In 2007, Japan saw a record 8.3 million international tourists. This figure has been increasing each year, and the discussion focuses on what Japan is doing to attract more tourists, as well as the reasons why Japan still draws fewer tourists per year than regional rivals such as Singapore.
From there, the discussion moves to a new plan that the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has proposed that would provide subsidies to companies that switch part-time workers to full-time workers. The government is working towards having more workers enrolled in the national pension system, and the reasons why this particular plan will not work are discussed.
After that, Panasonic, Sony, and Blu-Ray are discussed. With Wal-Mart announcing plans to stock Blu-Ray and not rival HD DVD players, the battle between Blu-Ray and HD DVD effectively seems to be over. In fact, just hours after this show was recorded, Toshiba announced that it would give up on HD DVD development.
The next part of the show focuses on capital injections. Wal-Mart, Seiyu and JAL are discussed, and Wal-Mart’s plans for Seiyu are put under the spotlight. Finally, the show ends with a discussion on increasing wheat prices. The Ministry of Agriculture is set to raise prices on imported wheat by 30%, and the consequences of this decisions are examined.
As always, thank you for listening. We hope to be back with our next release very soon!
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- BizCast Japan #3: The Japan Brand, Tourism, Keidanren and Fujio Mitarai, and Tokyo’s Foreign Financial District
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