Published : Jan. 6, 2015 - 20:59
Japan’s biggest trading houses are calling 2015 a pivotal year for the world’s third-largest economy as cheap oil, easy money and a weaker yen promise to boost growth.
Twenty five years on from the bursting of Japan’s bubble economy, which brought two decades of deflation, the nation is at a turning point with potential for “painful improvement” in the areas of employment, agriculture and health, said Marubeni Corp. chief executive officer Fumiya Kokubu.
A confluence of factors gives Japan a unique advantage, according to Mitsubishi Corp., the nation’s biggest trader.
Shoppers walk through the Ameya Yokocho shopping district of Tokyo. (Bloomberg)
“Japan, possibly for the first time, is in a situation where there’s cheap oil, a weak yen and zero interest rates,” Mitsubishi CEO Ken Kobayashi said. “After a wobbly political period, it is now time to set forth mid to long-term government policy.”
Both Kokubu and Kobayashi were commenting in traditional New Year’s greetings to staff, one of a number of messages posted on trading house websites.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called and won an early election in December to regain momentum for an economic strategy that seeks to pair monetary easing with business deregulation. Among other changes, Abe is seeking to weaken the influence of the JA Group, Japan’s largest agricultural lobby, and encourage companies to raise wages.
Despite the yen’s slide against the U.S. dollar, which was 12 percent last year, and a rally in Japanese stocks since Abe returned to power in 2012, so far private sector investment and consumption are below expectations, according to Yoji Sato, CEO of Sojitz Corp.
The prime minister said Monday that he will pursue more reforms this year and the economy will be his priority.
“We’re ready for a mind reset and to put our backs into the effort to make this a year of economic growth,” Mitsubishi’s Kobayashi said. “The key word this year is ‘implementation.’ This’ll be the year of implementation of economic policy.”
As crude oil lost almost 50 percent last year, the impact on Japan’s trading houses has been “tremendous” as the companies rely on sales of energy, metals and minerals for a significant part of their profits, said Itochu Corp. CEO Masahiro Okafuji.
That development should help Itochu, which has steered investments in recent years to non-resource assets, to bring profit on par with its two bigger rivals Mitsubishi and Mitsui & Co., Okafuji said.
Movements in currencies, crude oil and geopolitics will be the three dominant themes of 2015, according to Sumitomo Corp. CEO Kuniharu Nakamura.
The trader, which said in September that profit in the year to March 31 will be almost wiped out by a 240 billion yen ($2 billion) writedown of U.S. shale and other assets, is on target to boost net income to 400 billion yen by 2019, Nakamura said.
This year may bring geopolitical challenges and commodity-market volatility, according to Mitsui CEO Masami Iijima. Still, it will be mostly positive for the global economy, he said.
“Globalization is continuing to draw us closer together, and it has become clear that when countries share closer links they also share deeper responsibilities,” Iijima said. (Bloomberg)