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Business correspondent
Kenji Watanabe is a house byline for InfoHandle’s Business desk.
Eneos Corp lifted its nationwide retail gasoline marker for the third time in four weeks on Tuesday, citing dollar-denominated crude imports and a weak yen that keep refinery transfer prices elevated even as drivers return from the Sports Day holiday.
Inpex is booking higher yen-denominated LNG procurement costs as the currency trades near 158 per dollar, forcing the producer to lean on domestic gas sales and equity stakes while investors watch whether Middle East supply reroutes squeeze winter margins.
Mitsubishi Corp and Itochu trimmed dollar-forward hedge ratios in quarterly disclosures as the yen slid past 153 per dollar, forcing trading houses to balance import costs against offshore asset marks.
The 826-megawatt pressurized water reactor in Fukui prefecture returned to commissioning operation Friday after a corroded feedwater line forced a second manual shutdown since May.
Kirin froze three distributor price lists within 48 hours of the Fair Trade Commission’s dawn searches, while Asahi and Suntory filed sworn statements on how they set wholesale beer margins.
TEPCO Power Grid is soliciting emergency transmission work while landslides keep crews from reaching damaged feeders across northern Chiba.
Fair-trade investigators searched all four majors that dominate Japan’s beer market in a wholesale price-cartel probe, the first such beer enforcement action in agency history.
Privatization moved highway debt off the government books, but your toll still flows through a lease payment to a bondholder agency you never see on the sign.
Tokyo will let academics work with anonymized lender data as early as this fiscal year, hoping outside eyes can spot credit risks supervisors miss.
Japan’s Fair Trade Commission searched all four national brewers Wednesday over suspected coordination of wholesale shipment prices, sending Asahi and Kirin shares lower while restaurants watch bar tabs.
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama and Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda will speak together Tuesday afternoon as traders test whether Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s spending pledges can coexist with stable JGB issuance.
Major chains are rehearsing register and shelf math for a two-year cut in the 8 percent consumption tax on food, even as the Diet has yet to pass the bill.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries raised full-year ship-repair and defense-vessel backlog guidance after the Bank of Japan’s September Tankan showed large manufacturers planning double-digit capex growth.
The Financial Services Agency is preparing a business suspension order against Prudential Life Insurance after a string of misappropriation cases, the strongest regulatory strike against a foreign-owned insurer in Tokyo in years.
Seven & i Holdings told franchisees that royalty bands on core 7-Eleven contracts will shift from 1 October as prefectural minimum wages rise, pushing store owners to recalculate night-shift staffing before the year-end sales peak.
Franchise owners in 14 prefectures get a one-year royalty band reprieve as October wage floors climb, but Seven & i says the relief is tied to verified payroll audits.
SoftBank Corp told corporate mobility customers it will raise monthly line fees three percent from November 1, citing dollar-denominated handset procurement and maintenance contracts that no longer fit the yen tariff tables frozen since 2023.
Komatsu Ltd. pushed heat-exchanger output at its Osaka-area component plant into the December quarter after Asian hyperscaler orders for data-center chillers landed ahead of schedule, even as mining truck demand stays uneven.
Released Monday, the July record shows several board members arguing inflation risks warranted quicker rate increases even before the bank lifted its policy rate to 1.25 percent on September 18.
The benchmark Japanese government bond yield hit 3.115 percent in trading Sunday, extending a climb traders link to sticky inflation data and wagers that the Bank of Japan will tighten again before year-end.
JR East’s Chiba branch could not secure enough buses for a promised Uchibō Line shuttle, leaving Kisarazu riders with no rail link while typhoon repairs are expected to take three months.
Tax depreciation writes the building down on a fixed clock; banks treat that clock as physical law, so land stays expensive while the structure stops counting.
Uniqlo’s parent raised its operating profit outlook for the year through August 2026, betting that a weaker yen will keep overseas sales in yen terms even as Southeast Asian promotions weigh on local margins.
A 20-minute call between Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and President Donald Trump produced no joint statement, but it gave Japan Inc. a fresh read on how Washington will fold its China summit into economic-security coordination.
Finance Minister Katayama said President Trump raised yen weakness at the Takaichi summit, an unusually direct public account that keeps July's joint intervention principles in play and puts the Bessent-Katayama channel back under market scrutiny.
Japan’s benchmark 10-year government bond yield jumped to 3.055 percent early Thursday, its highest level since August 1996, as Tokyo traders returned from Silver Week to a global bond selloff led by surging U.S. Treasury yields and a weaker yen that stoked domestic inflation concerns.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries sketched a staged export path for its small modular reactor modules after a U.S. utility delegation toured its Yokohama engineering campus, tying overseas shipments to U.S. licensing milestones and domestic supply-chain capacity METI tracks as Japan pitches nuclear exports.
Mitsui, ITOCHU, and Marubeni traders are repricing spot LNG inventory and diesel-linked power margins as Typhoon Dujuan leaves fuel trucks queued at Chiba port gates, delaying Silver Week deliveries that feed Tokyo Bay gas plants and independent power sellers.