Early May it was 5 consecutive holidays if to add Saturday and Sunday and 9 consecutive holidays if we take additional 2 days of paid holidays. It became a so-called Golden week. However, there may be somebody who want to take another holidays to cure the fatigue of long holidays. Long ago I just remembered that our family had a hard time that we could not go to the toilet on the highways because of stuck in the traffic. There were many long queue before the toilets when we arrived at the parking area. We had been forced to experience the further bitterness of waiting for our turns. I could not help feeling sympathy for women. As a result, we have stopped travelling by car during the long holidays since then. I guess that there must have been built more parking areas on the highways since then and the number of toilets must have been increased accordingly. I saw the traffic jam on the TV that the highways had been filled with the large number of cars for dozens of kiros even early morning and late at night at the beginning and the end of the holidays. I thought the serious traffic jam should have not occurred because it should be broken up by small lot during long holidays. It is inevitable for the parents who have children of elementary and junior high school to travel with them during this period. You travel by airplane or Shinkansen if you don’t drive. You are prepared for anything during this period if you take every means of transportation. I could realize that how peaceful this country is if we consider it a thing that reminds us of a particular season or a yearly event. In the meantime, people stay in the town could enjoy something different feeling of release due to less people there.
Japan has been recovering. The job-offers-to-applicants ratio in March is1.15 times and unemployment rate is 3.4%. Nikkei Newspaper predicts the number of mid-career recruits of 2015 will increase by 8.7% from the previous year. Non-manufacturing industries increases by 11.1% and manufacturing industries up by 4.0%. Nikkei Stock Average have reached the 20,000 yen level for the first time in the 15 years. National tax revenue from April 2014 to March 2015 increased to 39.6796 trillion yen, 12.3% up from the previous year and it will come to 52 trillion yen if corporation taxes paid in May by companies of the business year ending this March should be added. This will exceed the year of 2007 before the Lehman shock year. The profit of 6.5 trillion yen generated in 2014 by Japanese overseas subsidiaries has been recorded the highest profits in the history. Under the weak yen situation the major Japanese automobile makers including Toyota, Nissan etc. have been promoting export gradually from Japan in 2nd half of this year to next year after returning the production to Japan. According to Japan Tourism Agency the amount consumed by inbound tourists from Jan. to Mar. 2015 increased by 64.4% to 706.6 billion yen against the same period a year earlier. It recorded the highest in the history as a quarter and with over 700 billion yen level in a quarter. The tourist industry of setting up the target of attracting foreign tourists of 20 million to Japan should be the trump card to activate the region of Japan.
It is needless to say that reliability on Japanese products and “made in Japan” should have been kept as before. On top of that it is necessary for the brand of “made by Japanese company” should be developed as the brand of reliability as well. Competitors overseas want to learn many things from Japanese companies in order to progress in quality. Therefore, Japanese companies should advance into overseas markets with confidence. Japanese culture have been assimilated with a foreign culture till now. However, it is inevitable for us to make foreign people understand genuine Japanese culture and to get them to share its uniqueness for developing their culture further from now on.
New container production price is $1,800 per 20f. New container stock in the factory in China seems to still remain over 800,000teu. Major leasing companies have been holding back the new order as speculation for the time being even if the new container prices are in down trend.
Ending Mar 2016 Prospect of Liner dept of 3 Major Japanese Lines
| Performance ending Mar 2015 | Prospect ending Mar 2016 | Exchange rate Prospect | ||
| NYK | Sales | 6,963 | 7,720 | ＄1.00＝115yen |
| Ordinary Profit | 98 | 275 | ||
| MOL | Sales | 7,870 | 8,330 | ＄1.00＝118yen |
| Ordinary Profit | -241 | 50 | ||
| K Line | Sales | 6,774 | 7,200 | ＄1.00＝118yen |
| Ordinary Profit | 206 | 120 | ||
| Unit: one hundred million yen | ||||
I wish Japanese shipping lines should make their own brand of their service by themselves which they only can do and it will make themselves different from others like NYK brand, MOL brand and K Line brand. I expect Japanese 3 major shipping lines could establish own distinguished service respectively based on DNA cultivated over 100 years of their history including culture of “Omotenashi” (good hospitality), “Kodawari” (stick to perfection”), Service Mind of pleasing customers. I do expect that it will enhance their favorable impression and strong expectation from shippers of the world.
ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) consists of 10 countries will start in Dec. 2015. They will be the economic zone causing big economic disparity from the richest country, Singapore with GDP of $56,000 per person to the poorest country, Cambodia with GDP of $1,000 per person. On top of that, they are different in political system like Vietnam and Laos of socialist countries and also different in religion like Islam, Christianity, Buddhism to create difference in culture. They will actually become an economic zone with 600 million people. In a sense I think Japan is one of the most suitable countries to support such complicated economic zone. Therefore, I am confident that Japanese companies could greatly contribute to growth of the world economy with culture of “Omotenashi” (good hospitality), “Kodawari” (stick to perfection”), Service Mind of pleasing customers if they should go there to work together with people of AEC. However, I would like to recommend that Japanese companies should cooperate with the local enterprises or the companies of Thailand or Singapore who know the situation of AEC very well.