The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is counting brothels in Hokkaido to help determine demand for services as the country battles its deepest post-War recession.
The number of sex parlors in the Susukino red-light district in Sapporo more than quadrupled in the past 20 years, a central bank report published on Wednesday said. The survey of sex shops and restaurants was designed to better gauge demand for services, an area of the economy that’s becoming more important as exports slump.
“Any study into services is most welcome,” said Martin Schulz, senior economist at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo. “We’ve got hundreds of studies on exports and manufacturing. What’s needed is creative thinking on services and if that includes brothels, so be it.”
Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, where growth has lagged behind the national average. Even during the six years ending 2007, when Japan’s economy posted its longest expansion in postwar history, Hokkaido’s unemployment rate exceeded the nationwide record of 5.5 percent
The bank commissioned the report, titled Susukino, Recent Trends and Changes to a Pleasure District, because the area is the heart of Hokkaido’s service industry, said a BOJ official who declined to be identified, citing internal regulations. Most non-manufacturers in Japan are suffering in the recession, the official said. The report’s author wasn’t available for comment.
Susukino covers an area about five times the size of the Tokyo Dome, home of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team. While the number of restaurants in the district fell 14 percent between 1989 and last year, the number of brothels climbed to 264 shops from 63, the report showed.
“The number of brothels has increased. There’s no question about that,” Tadao Yonezawa, 66, an official at the Susukino Tourist Association, said in an interview. “It must be because people want those services. Where there’s demand, you get supply.”
While services including restaurants and retailing make up about 60 percent of GDP, Japan’s economy has risen and fallen with the strength of its exports. The crash of overseas shipments following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in September gave way to a recession that shrunk the economy to its 2003 size.
Susukino ranks among Japan’s top three pleasure districts, along with Kabukicho in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward and Nakasu in Fukuoka, the report said. Under Japanese law, licensed shops operating in designated zones can openly offer services including oral sex, though intercourse is prohibited.
The BOK concluded its report by recommending that district planners consider ways to appeal to a broader segment of society, including women, in order to ensure the vitality of the area.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS