Japan's first-half bankruptcies rise for the first time in 11 years

“While the coronavirus is one of the reasons of the rise in bankruptcy, most of them are ascribed to increase of labor costs and October’s sales tax hike,” a spokesman at the research firm said.

So many of us here on the site were predicting this about the sales tax hike. Canaries in the coal mines.

Partly due to sales tax rise, mostly due to the LDPs management of the economy and reams of overly complicated paperwork needed to do anything with business growth. And a mind set that just refuses to change over a whole spectrum of day to day life.

Chinese, Europeans and Americans are flashing their cashes to prepare for the largest shopping spree of a lifetime in Japan. They would likely target hard assets (real estates as an example) and core assets (telecom rights like SoftBank).