New rules, public consultations, subsidies and regulator actions in Japan, in English.
Japan's agriculture ministry wants explicit honeybee use limits for tylosin tartrate feed additives, with a visible seven-day cap of 50mg per 10,000 adult bees and 200mg per brood box after residue trials supported the change.
The ministry's draft would let applicants register qualification information via Myna Portal or on paper, using a My Number card certificate and resident-register linkage to verify identity on the online route.
Some idle plots would stop triggering another yearly owner survey under Japan's draft farmland rule if owners have signalled willingness to use the intermediary leasing scheme, no likely tenant can be found and the parcel is already public in the farmland ledger, while a second amendment updates permit paperwork for landscape bodies.
It said it published disaster-related financial measures after the heavy rain that began on June 24. The evidence available here does not specify covered areas, institutions or relief terms.
The post-comment package under this year's amendments to the financial-function-strengthening law stretches across regional financial institutions, cooperative lenders and labour banks, with implementing rules spanning capital strengthening, organisational restructuring, preferred capital and supervisory guidelines. The point is breadth, not a rescue headline: the FSA has published the framework around support tools, but not a fresh capital injection for any named lender.
The FSA wants to extend the cutoff for designated SSBJ materials to June 11 from March 13 and add Sustainability Disclosure Practical Solution No. 1, which covers climate disclosures using SHK greenhouse-gas data. This is a public-comment draft, not a final rule, but it matters because it expands the official reference set rather than inventing a wholly new climate regime.
MEXT proposes lifting the standard establishment-cost schedule used in approval reviews, with one small humanities-campus building example rising to ¥880mn from ¥772mn as construction costs and prices climb.
Japan's second funding round for waste-energy projects is open to waste operators and lessors, but only for equipment that turns hard-to-recycle waste into heat, power or fuel that is then used outside the plant and within the local economy. The nationwide call runs from June 23 to Aug. 3 and is explicitly framed around CO2 cuts, decentralised energy and disaster resilience rather than simple plant upgrades.
A new nationwide subsidy round backs railway decarbonisation through three technology buckets: regenerative-power measures, vehicle energy-saving equipment and other advanced efficiency tools. Applications opened June 23 and close July 21, so for operators and suppliers the practical signal is clear even if the published notice still leaves the subsidy rate and maximum award to the detailed guidelines.
The prefecture's second call caps support at ¥3mn per company, with per-case ceilings of ¥1.5mn for patents and ¥600,000 for utility models, designs and trademarks. Useful help, though very much a regional tool rather than a national one.
Japan's first call for this trade-platform subsidy offers up to ¥50mn, with support rates of 2/3 for SMEs, 1/2 for mid-sized companies, and 1/2 or 1/3 for large companies depending on the application type; applications run from June 22 to July 21 and projects must finish by Feb. 19, 2027. One track covers Japanese companies linking internal systems to domestic or overseas trade platforms, while the other covers platform operators linking their own systems to other trade-related platforms, a tidy sign that the state has decided interoperability is now a public good.
Japan's 15th business succession and M&A call runs to July 24, but the secretariat says applications should arrive at least five business days early because last-minute defects may not get time for correction. Published caps range from ¥3mn to ¥10mn depending on the track.
The second call offers up to ¥200mn at a one-half subsidy rate for work that improves safety and reliability in nuclear-related equipment and services. The notice ties the scheme directly to reactor restarts and next-generation light-water designs, which is industrial policy with a hard hat.
The new subsidy covers business and legal, engineering, and construction and maintenance roles, with support capped at ¥500mn and two-thirds of eligible costs. Applicants also have to offer the resulting courses or facilities broadly, not keep them in-house.
The regulator's latest analytical note extends its machine-learning credit-risk trial beyond manufacturing and uses correlation clustering to make the model more interpretable. It is research, not rulemaking, but it shows where supervisors think early stress may surface.
Japan reopened the search for the body that will run a city-gas disaster-resilience subsidy after saying the June 11 round had deficiencies. The downstream program is aimed at helping smaller gas pipeline operators buy equipment for faster disaster recovery, but the immediate snag is administrative, not operational.
Japan is seeking the body that will run an indirect subsidy for smaller general gas pipeline operators buying equipment and facilities that speed disaster restoration. This is an implementing-body call, not a final award to operators.
Japan's current program can cover part of land-acquisition costs in qualifying development districts, with operations expected within three years of purchase and at least five jobs created within a year of opening. The portal listing shows a rate of JPY 2,500 per square metre and a JPY 55m ceiling, but the public excerpt does not show the full municipality list.
The FSA's April agenda for banks was unusually specific: watch Middle East-related supply-chain stress beyond direct counterparties, keep financing flowing to affected firms, give mortgage borrowers clearer explanations of rate risk and repayment simulations, and finish digitising bill and check functions by end-March 2027. It is not a new rule package, but it is a tidy snapshot of what supervisors want fixed now that higher rates and external shocks are back in the room.
Regional lenders got more help from rates than from markets. FSA data show aggregate net profit rose 38% in the year to March 2026, with net interest income up to 49,747 in the agency's JPY 100mn units and loans outstanding reaching JPY 349.1tn, but bond-related gains and losses worsened to -11,557 and the domestic-standard capital ratio edged down to 10.16%. The bad-loan ratio did improve to 1.54% from 1.64%, which is encouraging but still only an aggregate comfort blanket.
Japan's major banks finally look like they are earning from higher domestic rates, not just enduring them. FSA aggregate data show attributable net profit rose 32.7% in the year to March 2026, driven by bigger domestic loan balances, higher loan yields and stronger fee income, while domestic loans reached JPY 408.1tn and the bad-loan ratio eased to 0.64% from 0.67%. The picture is not spotless. Credit-related costs worsened, bond-related gains and losses stayed negative, and the FSA says capital ratios fell at the four internationally active groups while domestic-standard groups were flat. For markets, that is the useful split: the pleasant part of Japan's rate turn is now visible in bank earnings, while the uglier part still has not shown up clearly in headline asset quality.
INPIT opened a June 8 to June 29 application window for subsidies covering half of eligible overseas filing costs, capped at ¥3 million, for SMEs and research institutions. Useful policy tool, though the notice says nothing about likely uptake or award volume.
Japan's Financial Services Agency has opened a draft revision to supervisory guidance for small and regional financial institutions, centered on a more forward-looking early-warning system. The agency says deposit volumes at regional lenders are stagnating, and among shinkin and shinkumi institutions the number seeing personal deposits fall has exceeded the number seeing them rise since December 2023. The draft would push supervisors to test earnings and capital plans against demographics, interest rates, future expenses and stress scenarios. It is still a consultation, not a final rule, but the direction is clear: less comfort from recent trends, more scrutiny of whether business plans still work when the locals, and the deposits, stop growing.
A Ministry of the Environment-backed program managed by the Japan Green Vehicle Promotion Center will subsidise businesses introducing low-carbon diesel trucks. The public excerpt gives the purpose - cutting CO2 from truck transport - but not the amount, technical threshold or application deadline.