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Businesses in disaster areas, such as bakeries and barbershops, are starting to shut because they have no future prospects.

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Takao Matsuzaki, president of the Corporation for Revitalizing Earthquake-Affected Business. He says support is urgently needed for small businesses affected by the March 2011 massive earthquake and tsunami because the surge in demand tied to reconstruction has run its course.

© Jiji Press

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It is the chicken and the egg problem. Not enough customers because people are not moving back to a place with not enough businesses.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Sorry, support is not urgently needed to prop up businesses with no future prospects. Who should pay for that, and why? Setting aside the area around Fukushima, where TEPCO and the government should foot the bill, in other areas affected by the EQ/tsunami (an authentic natural disaster) the population may never recover. And while what happened to their communities is tragic, it's not like 1000s of villages and towns across rural Japan aren't facing the same prospect: rapid depopulation. They don't need support, they need to actively contemplate changing jobs or relocating. Perhaps there is a discussion to be had about providing assistance for that. But funneling money to dying businesses in largely abandoned communities--that sounds like a terrible investment.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

No, a low interest lending fund should be provided by local and national government to lend people who wants to re-start their business in that location again.

Fishing industry along with fish processing and freeze storage facilities can be re-initiated if they have the funds to obtain the required equipment to get the industry started again.

You need the entire industry re-established since none of them can stand alone.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

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