Category Archives: Research

September 10th, 2017 Norinchukin Research Institute Co., Ltd. KAMEOKA Kohei, Researcher On July 20, the Working Group on Fisheries was newly established within Japan’s Regulatory Reform Promotion Council. Going forward, the Working Group will discuss how to proceed with the deregulation of the fisheries industry. Here, I will review the development of the discourse on the deregulation of fishery rights (especially specific demarcated fishery rights), which is at the center of the debate on deregulation in the fisheries industry, up to the present. 1.Sequence of discourse on deregulation up to the present The first demand for the deregulation of the fishery rights system was made by theJapan Economic Research Institute, … Continue reading →

April 1st, 2017 Norinchukin Research Institute Co., Ltd. RUAN Wei, Research Counselor ■Abstract China embarked upon a full-fledged marketization of the economic system at the beginning of the 21st Century, in which Chinese authorities introduced a price support policy for farmers with income transfer being accompanied in order to realize a balanced growth of agriculture with non-agricultural sectors as well as to boost food production in the country. Increases in farmers’ income and food production were concurrently achieved by raising the support prices. At the same time, however, this has brought about a reversal of price difference between imported grains and domestically produced ones. In addition, lower tariff rates on … Continue reading →

January 1st, 2017 Norinchukin Research Institute Co., Ltd. SHIGETO Yukari, Senior Chief Researcher ■Abstract The Bank of Japan (BOJ) made an unprecedented move towards negative interest rates in January 2016 in an attempt to invigorate the economy. This caused Japan’s household financial assets to dip 0.4% in March from a year earlier, their first decline since September 2009. They fell a further 1.7% in June, accelerating the pace of decline. The introduction of negative interest rates also eroded Japanese banks’ profitability from lending and investing in securities. In the first half of fiscal 2016, 47 out of 64 regional banks reported declines in net income, and 38 of them recorded … Continue reading →

January 1st, 2017 Norinchukin Research Institute Co., Ltd. UCHIDA Takio, Senior Chief Researcher ■Abstract From 2015 Census of Agriculture and Forestry, we can find out that farmers belonging to so-called Showa single-digit generation, who were born in the first decade of the Showa period (1926 and 1934) and sustained post-war Japanese agriculture, increasingly retired from farming in a very short period. (1) This phenomenon is observed in a beginning of decreases not only in commercial farm households, but also in small-scale farm households (a total number of non-commercial farm households and land tenure non-farm households). On the other hand, (2) organized farm management entities, which became cultivators of farm lands … Continue reading →

October, 1st. 2015 Norinchukin Research Institute Co., Ltd. AKEDA Tsukuru, Visiting Fellow ■Abstract  The latest amendments to the Agricultural Cooperatives Act has been carried out by amending wide-ranged provisions of the Act, although some of them were not subject to arguments at the deliberations of the Diet. It contains a number of provisions which were deemed important from a practical point of view.  Many stakeholders, however, have found it difficult for them not only to understand the necessity of the latest amendments to the Act, but also to accept it forthrightly. No such amendment has ever been found in the history of the Act. The cause lies in the legislative … Continue reading →