Japan emerges from the shadows | A new generation embraces M&A | Nikkei heads for 24,000 by 2010... or sooner | Funds get activist in Japan | Living in the past; paying with the future
Loosening up banking relationships
Risk appetite boosts FX market
IN THE FIRST weeks of 2006, it seemed that leading Japanese companies had engaged in some strange competition to outdo each other with announcements of ever more extravagant new investments.
Fujitsu unveiled plans to spend ¥120 billion ($1 billion) over two years to boost microchip production in central Japan. Matsushita Electric Industrial trumped it by announcing it would invest ¥180 billion in a new plant to build plasma display panels in western Japan. Sharp upped the stakes: it intends to invest ¥275 billion to increase production at its liquid crystal display factories. And so it goes on – steel companies, industrial companies, technology companies.
It is the continuation of a trend among Japanese manufacturers that first began in the second quarter of 2003 to replace and upgrade ageing plant and machinery and expand capacity in markets where new demand is evident, such as TVs, digitized home electronics and hybrid cars. Japanese companies are spending ¥1.25 trillion a year more on replacement capex than they were at the start of the century.
