Could a little league baseball team win the World Series in five years? Japan’s state-backed chip startup Rapidus has a similarly long-shot ambition. In a country that currently produces 40 nanometer semiconductors, the two-year-old venture has the goal of leapfrogging generations of innovation and producing bleeding-edge 2 nanometer chips in 2027. It would be easy … Read more
Japan may be at an inflection point in its 25-year battle with deflation as price and wage rises show signs of broadening, the government said on Tuesday, signalling its conviction the economy was nearing an end to prolonged stagnation. The optimistic view echoes that of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), which has said corporate price- … Read more
Japan’s government raked in record tax income last fiscal year, the finance ministry said on Monday, which could help Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s ruling party forego the politically unpopular tax hikes needed to boost defence spending. Government accounts showed Japan raised 71.1 trillion yen ($491.53 billion) in tax for the fiscal year that ended March, … Read more
Japan’s economy grew at an annual pace of 0.1 per cent in October-December, in a downgrade from an earlier 0.6 per cent increase, showing how the world’s third-largest economy was barely eking out growth. The Cabinet Office’s revised figure for seasonally adjusted gross domestic product, or GDP, for the last three months of 2022 showed … Read more