According to The Nikkei Asian Review recently, Airbnb, a U.S.-based operator of a rental accommodations website, has formed a tie-up with Culture Convenience Club to try to boost its presence and name recognition in Japan.
The Japanese company, which runs the Tsutaya chain of bookstores and DVD rental shops, will disseminate information about Airbnb at its various outlets under the partnership announced Friday.
CCC also will help Airbnb increase the stock of rental lodgings in Japan by encouraging people to list rooms, apartments, homes and other private properties for vacation rentals. People who become Airbnb hosts can receive CCC's shopping points based on the rental income their properties generate.
Airbnb is spreading in Japan. The number of people who used the website to find private lodgings for stays in the country reached roughly 1.3 million in 2015, up fivefold from 2014. Many foreigners who used the service for visits to Japan noted that staying in ordinary homes let them experience the local culture and way of life better than staying in a hotel.
But the Japanese market remains underdeveloped compared with that of the U.S. and Europe. Japan accounts for only around 35,000 of the more than 2 million accommodations worldwide registered on Airbnb's website.
Regulatory restrictions, as well as the growing number of condominiums banning homestay, are seen as major reasons Airbnb has struggled to make inroads in the Japanese market. But CCC President Muneaki Masuda thinks the main factor is that "the true essence of Airbnb is not well understood" in Japan. His company wants to help "spread the Japanese-style homestay rentals," Masuda said.
Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, attending a news conference Friday in Tokyo alongside Masuda, expressed his hope that the tie-up with CCC will lead to the creation of new services.

Ref: http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Deals/Airbnb-teams-with-bookstore-chain-to-raise-profile-in-Japan

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According to The Australian Financial Review, high-rise and high-density living will be the way of the future for NSW as the state plans 1.8 million new homes for 11.2 million people by 2056, the NSW intergenerational report released this week said.
The Future State NSW 2056 report says to get there NSW will need to build 45,000 dwellings a year over the next 15 years. Completions have averaged over 42,000 a year in each housing cycle except for the seven years to 2005, when only 30,000 dwellings completed.
But this plan will hit a snag as greenfield or new land available for development within a reasonable commuting distance to key job growth centres mainly in Sydney dwindle, particularly after the boom of 2012 to 2015.
More and higher developments on existing or brownfield land would be the best solution.
"This constraint is increasingly acute in Sydney, exacerbated by its particular geography," the report said.
"As a result, new housing supply will increasingly need to come from either a redevelopment of brownfields land or greater density in existing residential areas.
"Technology or additional infrastructure may make this easier to achieve. For instance, new technologies may reduce the costs of safely remediating contamination on old industrial sites."
Another challenge is the pace of construction.
Despite an uplift in residential construction since 2012 – construction approvals reached over 70,000 in 2015, the highest since data collection began in 1970 – NSW still has a housing under-supply of around 100,000.
The NSW government anticipates at the current pace of construction the gap will close in the next few years, after which NSW housing will again hit an under-supply.
But as long as NSW maintains the completion of 43,500 to 45,000 dwellings a year, the state will avoid the housing under-supply problem, the report added.
Looking back at housing statistics, this is an achievable outcome.
The Urban Development Industry of Australia said the government must not drop the ball on housing construction.
"The industry has been aware for a long time that NSW has been facing a supply crunch," UDIA NSW CEO Stephen Albin said.
"The Intergenerational Report confirms that the NSW government has been focused on reducing housing under-supply but will need to lift their effort over a sustained period to meet the shortage identified again in this report."

Ref: http://www.afr.com/real-estate/nsw-must-keep-up-pace-of-construction-to-reach-2056-housing-target-20160526-gp51u9
 
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According to The Nikkei Asian Review recently, Toyota Motor made a splash Wednesday by announcing a partnership with Uber Technologies, the U.S. operator of the world's most ubiquitous ride-hailing app. However, whether auto companies can benefit from the rapid changes to their industry remains to be seen.
Formed in 2009, Uber now has a presence in 451 cities across 70 countries and jurisdictions. Although the company has received pushback from taxi companies and government authorities, especially in Europe, the number of Uber drivers is estimated to reach into the hundreds of thousands.
Toyota's investment is seen amounting to a few billion yen, and the carmaker is looking to provide its vehicles on lease to drivers in America. There is also speculation that Uber might team up with Toyota on driverless technology.
General Motors and other non-Japanese automakers have been quicker to hop on the ride-hailing bandwagon. Germany's Volkswagen announced Tuesday plans to invest $300 million in Gett, the Israeli provider of the on-demand mobility app of the same name. With the ride-hailing segment attracting the attention of Apple and the like, major information technology firms are joining global automakers in the race for a slice of the market.
Google positions vehicles as a venue for internet advertising. Apple is aiming to expand its content as it makes up for struggling sales of smartphones and other devices. Though IT companies can find success in turning vehicles into new earnings sources, the changing landscape may not necessarily be a boon for automakers.
Take car sharing, a trend getting as much attention as ride sharing. Smartphones have made it easier for individuals to strike up such agreements. If driverless technology advances car sharing even further, new-car sales may fall as a result.
The millennial generation, born between the 1980s and the early 2000s, is said to be shifting toward utilization as opposed to ownership. Companies traditionally reliant on manufacturing will find their revenue bases disrupted if that tendency intensifies. Last year, Barclays predicted that U.S. auto sales may decline 40% in 2040 compared with 2015.
Signaling the rise of cross-industry tie-ups, auto-related exhibits were prominent at the Consumer Electronics Show that took place in the U.S. earlier this year. Ford Motor CEO Mark Fields sees the turmoil accompanying the digitalization as an opportunity. Global automakers face the challenge of moving beyond their focus on manufacturing prowess to generate a new kind of value.

Ref: http://asia.nikkei.com/Japan-Update/Toyota-partners-with-Uber-to-keep-up-with-changing-market

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According to The Australian Financial Review today, German potash and salt giant K+S Group has revealed plans to expand into Australia with a $350 million Pilbara salt project.
The €4.2 billion ($6.5 billion) company is the world's largest salt producer and one of the top global suppliers of potash for use in fertiliser.
K+S, which has projects in three continents, said Western Australia was a "perfect target" for its salt growth strategy because of the region's history of salt production and proximity to Asia.
"When we look at the global demand for salt we see Asia as being the largest-demand market and the market in which we are not significantly participating so in many respects it is a white spot on our map," K+S Group board member and salt business head Mark Roberts told Fairfax Media.
"We recognised the need to have production that would enable us to be more sustainably competitive in the growing Asian market, specifically for chemical salts."
The Ashburton Salt project is on the coast about 40 kilometres south-west of the town of Onslow, and is expected to produce about 3.5 million tonnes of salt a year at a development cost of about $350 million.
It is still in the early stages of development, with a final investment decision slated for 2019. If the project went ahead, K+S would join other Pilbara salt producers, including Rio Tinto and Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co.
According to the West Australian Department of Mines and Petroleum, 11.4 million tonnes of salt, worth $355 million, was produced in the state in 2015.

Ref: http://www.afr.com/business/mining/germanys-ks-group-to-embark-on-pilbara-salt-project-20160525-gp3qkq

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According to The Nikkei Asian Review today, a government committee has proposed a new approach to boosting Japan's competitiveness.
The Industrial Competitiveness  Council on Thursday suggested two new mechanisms with which to kick-start structural reforms. The first is a backcasting approach.
In a draft proposal, the council suggested the government first set long-term goals based on conversations with the private sector, then count backward to draw and implement specific reform plans. The second is a business-oriented approach to cutting regulatory and administrative costs.
The proposals appear to reflect the government's frustration with a lack of notable progress toward structural reforms and its struggle to keep pace with rapid advances in technology.
Backcasting was tested in November. In a public-private dialogue on Nov. 5, Hisashi Taniguchi, CEO of Tokyo-based venture robot developer ZMP asked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to relax rules to allow autonomous vehicles on public roads.
"In the fourth industrial revolution, speed is key," Abe responded. The government "will decide on necessary measures right now right here without delay."
And at the end of the meeting, Abe announced the measures. The government, he said, "will work to allow driverless cars on expressways and transportation services by such cars by 2020, when Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games."
Japan had been slow in creating a legal framework for autonomous vehicles despite an ever-accelerating global race to commercialize the technology. But since Abe set the 2020 deadline, relevant ministries have hastened their work and the National Police Agency in April published tentative guidelines for testing autonomous vehicles on public roads.
"I thought the [backcasting] approach really works," said a ministry official who took part in writing the latest draft proposal, looking back on the November episode. The draft proposal points out that there are limitations to the conventional manner in which structural reform is undertaken. It also talks about the difficulty of foreseeing what innovations the fast-paced fourth industrial revolution will throw our way next. A moment's delay, the proposal says, could spoil everything.
The council suggests that the government use the backcasting approach when the speed of growth hinges mostly on regulation, such as internet of things technologies and artificial intelligence.
The second mechanism -- an approach to cutting regulatory and administrative costs -- has its model in Europe. It is a way of reducing complicated rules and red tape by measuring workloads and setting numerical reduction targets as well as deadlines for achieving the targets. Under the mechanism, progress is reported and reviewed to measure its effectiveness. The U.K., Germany and the Netherlands each cut unnecessary red tape by more than 20% over a few years using the approach.
If the approach helps reduce the time and number of people needed for inspections, examinations and other administrative procedures -- not to mention obtaining permits and licenses -- Japanese companies will benefit and foreign companies may be more willing to enter the Japanese market.
However, including this proposal in the draft faced strong opposition. Critics say setting numerical targets and deadlines is tantamount to ministries giving up on many existing regulations and ceding their administrative powers.
On 4April, a private-sector member of the government's Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy suggested that administrative services and efficiency should be improved by 20% within a year. But due to a strong backlash from ministry officials questioning the method's effectiveness, the council had to back away and significantly change the language. Its working-level paper, published on April 25, does not include a proposal for setting numerical targets and deadlines.
The latest draft proposal by the Industrial Competitiveness Council also falls short of calling for numerical targets and deadlines. Instead, it calls on the government to "reach a consensus within a year" on how to drastically streamline regulatory and administrative procedures for foreign businesses hoping to invest in Japan. Although no specific figure or deadline is included, several members of the council are still calling for expedited structural reforms.
This is not to say that backcasting is on a fast track. If goals are not properly set, deregulation measures designed to achieve them may end up wide of the mark. The key is for a new public-private conference on the fourth industrial revolution to understand the fast-changing needs of industry and swiftly reflect them in structural reforms.
In a rapidly changing world where new services -- ride sharing is one example -- can spread across borders in an instant, the government needs to swiftly react and rewrite regulations.

Ref: http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/Japan-eyes-new-path-to-structural-reforms

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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, seventeen companies will partner with 11 Japanese universities and technical institutes to recruit candidates who will serve long-term internships in a bid to cultivate strong, loyal workers and boost Japan Inc.'s global advantage.
The internships will last at least a month and will be offered to first- and second-year college students.
Participating companies, mainly big names like Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., have determined that lengthy internships before graduation can develop a sense of professionalism in future hires. Interns also will get to know the industry, preventing mismatches during full-fledged hiring season.
The Japan Association of Corporate Executives will administer the program. The employers and schools will exchange views to ensure that recruits are not skewed toward a particular group of industries or companies.
Much of the program will be implemented in August during summer vacation. Companies will accept four to five students each for an estimated total of 70 interns. More schools and companies may join depending on the success of the summer sessions.
The internships will not interfere with regular class time, and the companies will pay transportation, lodging and other out-of-pocket expenses. The students will earn college credit for their work. Starting next year, interns will be compensated in accordance with their duties.
Fuji Xerox internships will last about four weeks starting in mid-August. The Fujifilm Holdings unit will recruit five students from five colleges, including Hokkaido and Niigata universities. Those interns will gain on-site experience in sales as well as research and development. Cosmetics maker Kao will take five interns from Sophia University and four other schools beginning at the end of August, assigning them to the Tokyo head office and manufacturing facilities.
Students from Kure National College of Technology will complete roughly two-month internships starting this month at the Japanese arm of U.S. chemical maker DuPont. They will gain firsthand experience providing professional support for areas such as development of high-performance plastic materials and quality control.
Internships have existed in Western countries for more than a century. U.S. internships typically last several months, come with stipends and can lead to permanent positions at the companies. Interns also include many high school students.
Japan's internship system is less developed, though many businesses take interns for one- to two-day stints. During the postwar era, Japanese companies have usually hired college graduates en masse with the intent of training the recruits in-house. But voluntary turnover of employees has become a problem with the disruption of the workplace seniority system.
The program is targeted to students in their first two years of college in response to concerns that internships will let employers secure talent before Japan's official recruiting period.

Ref: http://asia.nikkei.com/Japan-Update/Companies-Japanese-schools-team-on-longer-internships

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According to The Australian Financial Review, a major Australian rail group, Aurizon, has turned to drones and other companies to help repair its rail tracks and trains as it uses technology and industry partnerships to reduce costs.
Technology is a core part of the rail group's plan to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in costs and boost productivity, with drones now used to survey its Queensland rail tracks and inspect bridges, overhead electrical wires and telecommunications towers.
Automated machines are already used to inspect trains, and Aurizon has been developing new methods for repairing trains that allows repairs to be done without pulling train carriages apart.
The rail group is installing remote recording equipment on some locomotives to monitor the condition of rail tracks so it can try and predict faults, and has put lasers at some level crossings to detect loads that are too high.
​Along with other rail groups such as Pacific National, Yarra Trams and the Australia Rail Track Corporation, Aurizon previously invested millions in one of the government-backed cooperative research centres, the CRC for Rail Innovation.
The CRC, which ended its seven-year research program in June 2014, partnered rail groups with universities to work on research projects, including smart technology and urban rail projects.
Aurizonis developing partnerships with US companies GE and Caterpillar, which owns engineering and repair group Progress Rail Services, and German software group SAP.
The company signed a memorandum of understanding with Progress Rail in March to outsource some of its maintenance work from July, including locomotive overhauls of its narrow gauge fleet.
Aurizon also plans to collaborate with Progress Rail on the development of cheaper parts for its locomotives and trains.

Ref: http://www.afr.com/business/infrastructure/rail/drones-dive-down-on-aurizon-tracks-as-rail-group-takes-to-technology-20160517-gowytx

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According to The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo may not have been an easy name to sell products with during Japan’s post-war years of economic growth thanks to its association with pollution--but in 2016 the brand is far from toxic.
Spurred on by the ever-increasing number of foreign tourists and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, more and more food businesses are capitalizing on the “Tokyo brand” in the promotion of their products.
Koyama Brewery in Tokyo’s Kita Ward is one such example. Founded in 1878, it is the last sake brewery in operation within Tokyo’s 23 wards. This year, the brewery revived a brand called Tokyo Zakari around 40 years after it was discontinued.
The brewery relaunched it on April 15 at a cost of 3,000 yen (US$28), excluding consumption tax, for a 720-milliliter bottle, and it was greeted with a surprising number of orders. Koyama has already sold out its own stock, but some can still be found in other outlets.
“We were amazed by the huge response,” said Kuri Koyama, 37, the managing director of the brewery.
Tokyo Zakari was once loved in the mass market, but the brand was discontinued as sales declined. Amid the period of strong economic growth, pollution was a big issue in the capital, and “Tokyo” branding did not go over well in the food industry at the time.
The turning point came two years ago when an employee from a confectionary manufacturer, a business partner, noticed the label of the original Tokyo Zakari displayed on the wall of the brewery and said, “The Tokyo brand has great marketing power at the moment. It is such a waste not to use it.”
A distribution company also endorsed the idea, citing its appeal to foreign tourists, and the brewery decided to revive the brand.
The newly launched Tokyo Zakari is a “junmai daiginjo,” a top-quality sake brewed only with rice and malted rice. It retains its original label design with cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums, with the word Tokyo in English added to it.
“We are planning to continue brewing another batch of the brand for the next season and thereafter. We hope people will enjoy it for years to come,” said Koyama.
Founded in 2014, Tokyo Winery in Nerima Ward is the first vintner ever to open in the capital. From March this year it started co-farming its own vine with farmers around Tokyo. Miwa Echigoya, 39, the representative of the winery, used to work at a fresh produce wholesale market in Tokyo’s Ota Ward.
There, she began to feel strongly about how underrepresented Tokyo’s farming industry was. Deciding she would promote local agricultural produce, Echigoya came up with the idea of making wine in Tokyo.
The vintner produces about 9,000 bottles of wine annually, including those made with a Japanese species of grape grown in Nerima Ward.
And in Shinjuku Ward, L’atelier chouchou, a French restaurant with a special focus on Tokyo’s fresh produce, opened on April 9.
“Vegetables harvested in Tokyo are the freshest we can get (here in Tokyo). I want more people to realize the goodness of grown-in-Tokyo veggies,” said owner and Chef Yusuke Nomura, 35, who grew up in Shibuya Ward.

Ref: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201604290010.html

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http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/2806739

According to The Australian Financial Review today, online marketplace eBay has partnered with Myer, a major department store in Australia, to create what it says is the world's first virtual reality department store in Australia.
The two companies will unveil the app on Thursday, which works via a smartphone inside a virtual reality headset to place shoppers inside a virtual world surrounded by products to buy.
The launch is a global first for eBay, which will closely observe how Australian shoppers behave inside virtual reality, in order to develop its broader plans for what it views as an important new retail channel.
The app works with virtual reality headsets like Samsung's Gear VR, but also with cheaper options like Google Cardboard.
Myer chief executive Richard Umbers said "Our customers can now immerse themselves in the experience of shopping inside a Myer store from wherever they may be, with product information updated in real time to ensure everyone can keep up with the latest offers from Myer."
Rather than walking around a virtual recreation of a Myer store, once wearing the VR headset, customers find themselves surrounded by images of different product categories which they can investigate further by staring at them.
eBay Australia and New Zealand senior director of marketing and retail innovation Steve Brennen said the app had taken 12 months to design, and would provide Australian shoppers with an early glimpse of the future of shopping.
"We knew Australia was ready to go first with this because we see how much VR equipment is being bought here on eBay ... from January through to April we've already sold tens of thousands of headsets."
"We really are glimpsing a future where future versions will see a shopper in Sydney shopping with a friend in New York from a store in London," Mr Brennen said.
"Personalisation will also mean in future an individual will have their own virtual reality store that is built up by their past purchases and tastes ... only showing products in their size and shape. This will make it a serious new retail channel."

Ref: http://www.afr.com/technology/web/ecommerce/ebay-and-myer-launch-worldfirst-virtual-reality-department-store-20160518-goxpum

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According to The Australian Financial Review today, commercial property in Australia, from office towers to hotels, out-performed other investment classes in the year to March, helped by lower interest rates, improving fundamentals in Sydney and Melbourne, and strong offshore demand. The total return for the sector was 14 per cent according to the key metric, the Property Council/IPD Australia All Property Index, which is now managed by MSCI.
The figure, which comprises an average 6.6 per cent income yield and 7 per cent capital growth, has continued to accelerate, with the March quarter one of the strongest for the sector since the financial crisis.
The best performing sectors were the less traditional property classes such as hotels and healthcare. Collectively this "other" class had a total return in the year of 18 per cent.
The figure is based on the income returns and valuation changes on a basket of over 1400 Australian commercial properties worth $157 billion.
And it assumes no gearing. Add finance to the mix and the returns would be even more substantial.
Of the traditional sectors, the office towers performed the best in the March with a total return of 15.1 per cent.
Retail property had a total return of 12 per cent, with a 6.6 per cent income yield and what appears to be a lagging 5.5 per cent capital growth.

Ref: http://www.afr.com/real-estate/commercial/investment/commercial-property-the-top-investment-in-the-year-to-march-20160517-goxj63

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