Japanese New Year Assembly Discusses & Seeks Way out of Dim Economy

The Fasteners Institute of Japan and The Japan Research Institute for Screw Threads and Fasteners held a New Year Assembly on January 14. Some attendees said the unclear economic condition remains the hurdle against the growth of the whole industry, and that the industry must utilize the government's various supporting policies and use business judgment that was never seen before in order to find the way out of the current condition.

Regarding the industry condition, some were worried about "the non-transparent Chinese economic condition", and some questioned "whether Japan's domestic condition has room for growth" because "the export did not grow with the depreciated yens; the manufacturing giants are not in the mood for equipment investment even with high profit gains; the net salary in the labor market did not increase even if the unemployment rate has dropped to below 3%". Finally, some attendees brought up the SME equipment investment incentives policy of the second phase of Abenomics and proposed that the industry should make good use of this policy and adopt highly-efficient business models.