Consumers must buy
"Even though exports are a small part of the economy overall, the market needs something to turn it around," said David Semaya, president of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers in Tokyo, which handles US$10 billion of US money in Japan.
The first half of 2002 will likely be rough. Analysts expect profits to plunge more than 30 percent in the October-to-March period, about twice as much as in the previous six months. Once those declines are out of the way, stalwart investors can again focus on the companies that can make their way out of Japan's economic wilderness.
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