Japan's Economy Boost

While cultural sensations such as KPop have lifted Korea's culture to fame, Japan has been largely unnoticed, save for its anime and manga, which have fans around the world. "There are a lot of good things and convenient things in Japan, and we'd like to offer these up to the world," said Yoshiaki Akamatsu, of the Creative Industries Division at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. "It seems a real shame to have them stuck in Japan and unknown."
While Akamatsu claims that Japan merely wants to share its culture with other nations, the main reason for its globalization efforts in recent years is a "share in dynamic world cultural industry, set to surge more than 40 percent by 2020 to more than $9 trillion." Japan plans to establish a $500 million investment of public money aimed at helping Japanese firms promote their cultural wares abroad. The government hopes that this will lead to a greater interest in Japanese culture and more tourism, as well as more exports of Japanese products such as books and video games. This would help bring more money into the Japanese economy, as its only main product that it has more exports than imports of is video games, which isn't enough to support its massive population. Furthermore, Japan is suffering from a lack of jobs and workers, and more opportunities for revenue and jobs will help people be more motivated.
Furthermore, in addition to popular anime and manga characters will be harnessed, "Cool Japan" wants to share more of Japanese food, fashion and services, such as the sumptuous hospitality of the country's inns, with consumers abroad, hoping that this will help draw in more revenue for the Japanese economy.
In recent years, the Japanese economy has struggled while countries such as Korea have grown their economy significantly, which is a result of Japan refusing to outsource and globalize in the early 2000s. Japan is trying to recover from this mistake by embracing globalization and using popular anime characters and a unique culture to connect a global audience to its economy.

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  1. AnonymousApril 2, 2019 at 8:49 AM

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  2. AnonymousApril 2, 2019 at 5:10 PM

    Nice post! It's interesting how Japan's economy, which was once a global powerhouse, has since become stagnant. Japan's economy still ranks as the world's fifth largest economy, but its annual growth rate is only 1.5%, only a fraction of what the other leading economies are growing at. Furthermore, it's GDP per capita is 41st in the world, making its standard of living (the number of goods/services produced per person) lower than the United States or the EU.

    The biggest issue with Japan's economy is deflation. Japan relies heavily on the Bank of Japan, the country's central bank, to continuously buy government debt. To spur growth, the Bank of Japan keeps interest rates low, but this results in people expecting low rates and thus falling prices. This expectation means that every time prices rise, consumers stop buying, and they wait for prices to drop again.

    This means that businesses can't raise prices or hire new workers, resulting in employees not getting raises and having to save money instead of spending it. The result is a liquidity trap, which exists when there's a lot of capital in the economy, but the funds aren't used for investment or spending.


    Source: https://www.thebalance.com/japan-s-economy-recession-effect-on-u-s-and-world-3306007

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