■ UnemploymentJapan's jobless rate rises
Japan's unemployment rate rose to match a record 5.5 percent last month and consumer prices extended a four-and-a-half year slide, as slowing sales forced retailers to slash jobs and offer discounts. Japan's jobless rate rose from a revised 5.3 percent in December, the state statistics bureau said. The government also said Tokyo's core consumer prices, regarded as a benchmark for nationwide prices, fell 0.1 percent this month. It forecast that industrial production will drop 0.4 percent this month, after a 1.5 percent gain last month. "Japan's economy is still at a standstill," Heizo Takenaka, economic and fiscal policy minister, told reporters yesterday. Yasukazu Shimizu, a senior economist at Aozora Bank Ltd, said the jobless rate could rise to as much as 6.5 percent this year.
■ Software
Microsoft signs China deal
Microsoft Corp is aiming to secure a place for its software in the world's largest market for mobile phones by signing a cooperation agreement with China's No. 2 mobile operator. Under the deal, Microsoft will use its software to help China United Telecommunications Corp develop new, data-focused services for its 207 million subscribers. A memorandum of agreement was to be signed yesterday in Beijing by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and China United Telecom president Wang Jianzhou. The agreement, for which financial terms weren't disclosed, is Microsoft's latest step to gain a piece of the next-generation mobile market, in which phones are used for sending e-mails, pictures and music. The effort faces stiff opposition from traditional mobile-phone makers, such as Finland's Nokia Corp.
■ Retailing
Sogo, Seibu study merger
Sogo Co, a Japanese department store operator which emerged from bankruptcy last month, and struggling Seibu Department Stores Ltd may merge in June to create Japan's second-largest department store operator. "I am considering merging the two companies under a holding company as early as June," Sogo President Shigeaki Wada said at a press conference. A combined Sogo-Seibu Department Stores will rank second to Takashimaya Co by sales. It would still have to improve operations and finances, say some analysts. The two companies already have a business alliance: Seibu, which this week received a ¥230 billion (US$1.95 billion) bailout from creditors, initially helped Sogo to improve operations after Sogo filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2000 with group liabilities of ¥1.87 trillion.
■ Restructuring
Saito to head revival agency
Atsushi Saito, a former vice president of Nomura Securities Co, will head the government agency tasked with helping debt-laden companies back to health. Saito, 63, joined Japan's largest brokerage in 1963 and had spells running its fixed-income division and working for Nomura International Inc in New York. Dokkyo University's Shinjiro Takagi will lead a committee within the Industrial Revitalization Corp that will decide which companies can be saved, the Cabinet Office said in a statement. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has made cleaning up ¥52.4 trillion (US$434 billion) of bad loans at Japanese banks a cornerstone of his program to revive the world's No. 2 economy.
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