Richard Cayne comments

Japan should open its financial sector up to foreign firms and foreign investments. The regulators have been going in opposite direction since the late 1990s however and have pushed out the likes of UBS, Credit Suisse and all the other big offshore banks wishing to open up choices for global investments. Japan says they want to attract these firms but they won’t do so with such rigid and tight restrictions in place as they have now.

If they were to open as SIngapore or Hong Kong have they would certainly attract many security companies along with large numbers of high tax paying foreign nationals.  Though they would have to give some tax breaks to attract these expats who are used to paying less than 20% in tax where Japan’s current tax rate would have them paying over 50% of their income away in tax. Not very attractive And when you consider that Japan has a global inheritance tax the same expat can find his estate fully exposed to inheritance tax at a 55% tax rate!  A few changes are certainly in order if Japan wishes to be competitive in Asia.

We will recover from the current Covid 19 pandemic and in the meantime governments are printing money like there is no tomorrow. Ultimately inflation with take hold and the markets will balance themselves out as per usual Fed playbook inflating out of trouble makes sense. Japan has been trying to do this for many decades so this time they may be getting it right.

I believe Nissan will eventually get out if the issues that face them. They do need to roll out more efficient and updated looking models. As a fairly large shareholder I’m hoping they do sooner than later.

Richard Cayne

Mr Suga will no doubt get in. The LDP seems to have majority. Financial backing is strong. He is well liked amongst the financial community as well.

Richard Cayne