Japan's Trade Gap Widens to ¥406.9bn as Imports Hit a Record

Japan's Information and Communications Council has published a draft third report proposing to fold two new services, mobile-network-based fixed-line telephone and shared wireless fixed broadband, into the country's legally protected "universal service" category. The Telecommunications Business Policy Committee opened the draft for public comment on July 22, with submissions due by August 25.

Why it matters: Extending guaranteed nationwide service, and the subsidies that fund it, to these two services follows a new duty on carriers to supply service in areas no company otherwise will, a cost that ultimately gets spread across the industry's subsidy pool.

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications opened a public comment period on July 22, running through August 4, on a draft proposal targeting home internet-of-things devices that have been quietly turned into relay points for fraud. The ministry's study group on countering sophisticated cyberattacks wants telecom carriers and internet service providers to say what role they should play in shutting the practice down.

The number: Hijacked home IoT devices were linked to 44% of Japan's online banking fraud cases in 2024, the study group's own figures show, a share large enough to put internet providers squarely in the policy conversation.

Nichirei Corporation, the Tokyo-listed frozen-food and cold-chain logistics group, said in a July 22 update that some of the servers hit by a recent cyberattack stored personal information, and that it is notifying the individuals affected directly. The company describes the underlying incident as a cyberattack rather than a routine system failure, and the disruption had affected warehouse entry and exit operations along with frozen-food shipping.

Why it matters: Confirming that personal data sat on compromised servers, even without detailing how the attack happened, turns a generic outage notice into a data-handling problem the company now has to manage directly with affected individuals.

Japan's Central Social Insurance Medical Council, known as Chuikyo, approved a national health insurance reimbursement price of ¥53.2mn for Cuorips's lab-grown cardiac tissue sheet for severe heart failure, at a general meeting held on July 22. The approval falls under category C2, reserved for new function and new technology products, and turns a regulatory clearance into a commercial one: it is the price hospitals will actually be paid once the treatment reaches patients.

What to watch: Sales cannot begin until the official listing takes effect on September 1.

Pasona Group's board voted on July 22 to oppose a shareholder proposal that would force the staffing conglomerate to buy back shares held by founder Yasuyuki Nanbu and a family holding company, unless the board first adopts a formal family-governance policy within three months. The proposal comes from Mercury AIFLNP V.C.I.C Ltd ahead of Pasona's annual meeting scheduled for August 28.

The catch: The founding family holds roughly 48% of Pasona's voting rights collectively, and Nanbu has told the company he has no intention of selling; the board calls the buyback trigger legally unenforceable.

Juroku Financial Group, the holding company for Gifu-based Juroku Bank, raised its earnings and dividend forecasts for the year in a July 22 filing, formally flagging the move as a dividend increase after stronger-than-planned interest income. In a separate disclosure filed the same day, the company lifted its medium-term targets, raising its consolidated net income goal from ¥20bn or more to ¥25bn or more and its return-on-equity target from 6% or more to 7% or more.

Why it matters: Two distinct filings, one earnings nudge and one longer-horizon target reset, both point the same way: rising interest income is starting to show up in a regional bank's own guidance.

OBIC, the Tokyo-listed enterprise software maker behind the OBIC7 ERP suite, closed the quarter to the end of June with sales of ¥36.7bn, up 13.2% from a year earlier, and net profit of ¥22.7bn, up 16.3%. Operating profit rose 15.7% to ¥24.9bn.

Why it matters: The company's cloud-based system-support business is growing faster than the core ERP software it sells directly to large and mid-sized firms, even as OBIC flags growing caution among corporate buyers.

AIMECHATEC said a major overseas semiconductor-related manufacturer has ordered multiple lines of its solder ball mounter systems, worth approximately ¥2.5bn. The order is earmarked specifically for advanced AI semiconductor packages destined for data centres, and the deal carries no currency risk because it is fully yen-denominated.

What to watch: The revenue will not hit AIMECHATEC's books until the year to June 2028.