Japan is considering lowering the 10 percent ownership threshold at which foreigners are required to report stakes in domestic companies, two officials said, as Tokyo looks to better monitor Chinese investment in areas related to security.
Such a move would follow similar steps taken by the US and European countries in recent years and reflects growing unease in Japan about the possibility that Chinese state-backed companies could gain access to key technology.
“We need to strengthen monitoring for national security, but we don’t want to hinder foreign direct investment itself,” said one of the officials, both of whom declined to be identified, because the talks have not been made public.
While Japan cannot explicitly target a single country under the reporting rules, the move would in effect enable closer monitoring of Chinese investment, the official said.
Under current rules, a foreign entity is required to report ownership in a Japanese firm once it plans to take at least a 10 percent stake. The change would see that percentage lowered, although the new threshold is yet to be finalized, the officials said.
“The United States and Germany have taken similar measures aimed at China. Japan is much further behind when it comes to protecting the security of its economy,” the second official said.
The government is taking what appears to be an initial step by changing how the current 10 percent threshold is calculated, according to a document on the Japanese Ministry of Finance’s Web site.
From October, its 10 percent threshold would only apply to shares with voting rights, rather than all outstanding shares presently, which means an effective tightening in the reporting criteria.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, has been on a push to welcome foreign direct investment since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took his office in 2012.
The balance of the inward direct investment has steadily increased and reached ¥30.7 trillion (US$291.30 billion) at the end of last year, government data showed.
Chinese mergers and acquisitions in Japan totalled ¥220 billion last year, Tokyo-based advisory firm Recof Corp said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day