Business is becoming a little bit dull in Japan. Consumer spending is sluggish. Capital investment is still brisk, but sees no giant leap. Good news is that labor market is favorable for serious job seekers and private companies enjoy good performance. The Japanese economy is becoming more vigorous when the next spring comes.
The turmoil in the US financial market is followed by a sharp fall of stock prices of American companies. The situation has caused the current strong yen and confusion in the Japanese stock market. FRB's policy will stay between tight money and monetary ease, keeping foreign exchange market fluctuating for a while.
Keidanren's latest annual policy assessment of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has been just released. It shows how much 10 priority policies openly proposed by our organization are reflected in parties' policies, actions and results. The assessment tells that in general, LDP and Keidanren are heading toward the same direction, and DPJ's policies are incompatible with ours in some areas.