According to The Nikkei Asian Review, Japan's exports of wagyu beef are on the rise as the rest of Asia craves the marbled beef.
Wagyu exports in the January-October period jumped 18% from a year earlier to 10 billion yen (US$84.8 million).
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries as well as other organizations expect the country's beef exports to reach 12 billion yen by the end of the year, surpassing the record 11 billion yen worth of beef exports in 2015.
Wagyu has become one of Japan's major agricultural exports. The prized beef is shipped to Hong Kong, Singapore, the U.S and other countries. It is now Japan's second-largest farm export in value terms, after apples, which brought in 13.3 billion yen in the January-October period.
According to Ibaraki Prefecture's livestock industry association, exports of Hitachi wagyu beef in the April-September period topped 2,000kg, surpassing the 1,800kg logged in fiscal 2015.
A representative of a Gifu Prefecture-based Hida beef producer said wagyu sales are especially strong in Hong Kong and Singapore.
The government is now adding slaughter house capacity in an effort to meet the hygiene standards required by trade partners. The plan is to ensure that five slaughter houses meet the requirements before this fiscal year is out.
Over the next three years, Japan plans to invite some 50 overseas chefs to the country to teach them how to cook wagyu.

Ref: http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Wagyu-exports-set-to-hit-record-12bn-yen
 
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http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/-120
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According to The Asahi Shimbun, the price is as compact as the vehicle in a car-sharing feasibility study that started in Tokyo on Dec. 20, with a 15-minute drive costing as little as 206 yen ($1.75).
The trial takes its cue from European-style, "take-it-here, leave-it-there" services that allow users to pick up bicycles from the roadside and leave them at their destination for the next user.
Futuristic one-seater, electric-powered Toyota cars take the place of bicycles in the Tokyo study, a joint project between Japan’s largest car-sharing service provider Park24 Co. and the transport ministry. The study, which will continue for one year, will examine how the service is used.
Approximately three-meter-wide parking spaces have been specially set up at three locations on spaces in Tokyo.
The trial is available exclusively to members of the Times Car Plus car-sharing service, operated by Park24. Members can park the cars at the service’s 88 hubs in Tokyo.
A choice of two cars are available--Toyota Motor Corp.’s i-Road, or Toyota Auto Body Co.’s super-compact electric vehicle Coms.
Fees start from 206 yen for 15 minutes.

Ref: ​http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201612210030.html
 
If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/-go 
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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, Australia's extended run of economic growth has led to more affluence, and its citizens are increasingly spending money on dining, as seen in the rising popularity of food delivery services offering menu items from all sorts of eateries. 
Symbolizing the trend was the popularity of a limited-period restaurant in Sydney that collected recipes from famous restaurants and gave diners the opportunity to eat a variety of dishes in one place. In addition, competition is intensifying among food delivery services, with new players such as UberEats by Uber Technologies of the U.S. entering the market.
Broadsheet Restaurant was launched in Waterloo in southern Sydney in an old warehouse district, and it was only open from Oct. 6 to Dec. 4. Australia's online city guide Broadsheet operated the restaurant with the aim of giving customers the chance to eat food from various restaurants in a single setting, according to Caroline Clements, a 31-year-old co-founder of Broadsheet. 
All 78 seats were booked for dinner every day, with each seat taking two to three customers every night, Clements said. 
Broadsheet rented the facility, hired cooks, bought ingredients and cooked recipes from 28 restaurants that provided their most popular menu items, including Cho Cho San and Da Orazio, Japanese and Italian restaurants, respectively. 
Broadsheet is an internet site that launched in 2009 as a Melbourne city guide; a Sydney edition followed in 2011. This year, pages were added for the remaining mainland capitals of Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The site is especially popular with millennials, with analytics showing the average user to be 32 and unique visits at 1.2 million per month.
Increased demand has boosted sales at Australian restaurants, with the total figure having grown on average 5.6% annually over the past five years. And as growth in the year ending June 2017 is expected to slow to just 2.1% due to an overall slowdown in the country's economy, consumers are turning to home food delivery services, which are less expensive than eating out, IBISWorld said.
Key players in Australia's home food delivery market are Domino's Pizza, which was launched in 1983, and Menulog, which debuted in 2006, but competition has been growing after they were joined by Germany's Foodora and Britain's Deliveroo in 2015.
UberEats went live in Melbourne this past April and in Sydney three months later.
The company has taken advantage of the brand recognition established by the Uber ride-hailing service to successfully get famous local restaurants on board. 
UberEats charges 5 Australian dollars ($3.64) per delivery and accepts single-item orders. It expanded into Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in October and has become one of the largest players with over 500 registered restaurants.

Ref: http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Trends/Australian-diners-dig-into-new-foodie-culture?page=1
 
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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, Sundrop Farms' tomatoes are thriving on nothing but sunlight and seawater in a barren, unproductive expanse in Port Augusta. 
According to the company, it's the first farming system of its kind to have gained commercial scale. The 65-hectare facility is also the recipient of the largest bet made on Australian horticulture. An investment of 200 million Australian dollars (US$148 million) paid for a desalination plant, greenhouses and other installations.
The project is also a model of sorts for turning other desert wastelands into farms; the company is already testing its system in the U.S. and Europe.
Sundrop turned its piece of desert into a tomato farm in October, using four 5-hectare greenhouses in Port Augusta, about 300km north of Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia where the company is based.
The greenhouses are powered by sunlight -- 23,000 mirrors that reflect rays toward the top of a 127-meter high receiver tower that takes the heat of the sun and turns it into electricity.
This power is enough to operate the desalination equipment, which pumps in seawater from a gulf 5km away. The facility produces 1 million liters of fresh water every day.
Sundrop Farms CEO Philipp Saumweber, a former investment banker, described the agriculture model as "innovative" in that it harnesses only seawater and sunlight.
Pesticides are not used. Saplings are grown hydroponically in coconut husks instead of soil.
Saumweber said Sundrop's system frees farmers from weather- and crude oil-related risks, thus assuring low production costs.
Coles Supermarkets Australia, a large Australian supermarket chain has signed a contract with Sundrop Farms to purchase 15,000 tons of tomatoes a year. It made the deal partially because of Sundrop's assurance that it can produce stable yields all year long.
The contract runs for 10 years, an unusually long term for Coles, so Sundrop won't have to rush in establishing an eco-friendly tomato brand.
On Monday, Sundrop tomatoes were going for A$5.90 per kilogram, almost the same as tomatoes grown outdoors, which are priced between A$5.50 and A$5.90.
According to Coles, feedback from buyers has been good; many say the tomatoes have a nice flavor.

Ref: http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Behold-the-high-tech-desert-tomato?page=1
 
If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1879578
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According to The Australian Financial Review, demand for medium-density development sites with permits in Melbourne's inner and middle-ring suburbs has surged as rising house prices push up demand from families for townhouses and larger apartments.
Figures compiled by Permitready.com.au, a real estate portal which lists development sites for sale with permits, show inquiries were up 60 per cent in October compared with the same time last year, with sites three to 15 kilometres from the CBD the most popular.
While concerns remain about oversupply in the centre of Melbourne because of a pullback from investors, in the suburbs apartment and townhouse developments increasingly target owner-occupiers and are selling well.
"Our results show that in the past 12 months developmental-approved land offerings averaging nine kilometres from Melbourne's CBD are consistently attracting strong inquiry levels from both developers and investors," said Permit Ready managing director Nick Materia​.
"Additionally we have noticed a number of development groups focusing on delivering townhouse projects over apartment products. In part this is a result of financial constraints, supplier demand, pre-sales demand and efficient construction timelines and the reduced costs associated," Mr Materia said.
In the past month Savills Australia has sold more than $20 million worth of inner suburban development sites, including a 429-square metre site in Heidelberg, 13 kilometres north-east of the CBD, for $5 million with a permit for 20 large apartments and five shops.
Knight Frank's head of commercial sales for Victoria, Danny Clark, said recent transactions strongly supported demand for middle-ring townhouse sites.
Recently, developer Glenvill sold 55 out of 60 townhouses in one morning in the second stage of its YarraBend project in Kew, 6.5 kilometres from the CBD with buyers mainly young couples and young families.
By comparison with the surge in the suburbs, Mr Materia said CBD sites were generating "consistent" levels of inquiry but noted a sentiment change with developers opting to buy and hold prime sites and await the next uplift in the property cycle.
"The CBD market can be considered crowded, and the results show many developers and investors are looking further out for a quicker return which is highly achievable during the current cycle," he said.

Ref: http://www.afr.com/real-estate/residential/vic/demand-for-suburban-sites-with-permits-surges-60-per-cent-in-melbourne-20161204-gt3xlm

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/-603263737 
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According to The Asahi Shimbun, a device that reads brain waves to wirelessly control a robot arm or type text on a computer screen is to be clinically tested by Japanese researchers.
The research, a world first, will be conducted on patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which destroys motor neurons throughout the body. It will begin as early as fiscal 2017.
ALS patients are unable to breathe and speak as the disease progresses. ALS is incurable, and about 10,000 people in Japan suffer from it.
The wireless technology is an addition to brain-machine interface (BMI) development, which enables people to control instruments by brain signals.
In the planned clinical trial, the team, which includes researchers from Osaka University and the University of Electro-Communications, will remove part of the skull and place about 100 electrodes measuring only 1 millimetre in diameter on the surface of the exposed brain.
In addition, a small square of skull a few centimetres across will be cut out and a wireless device will be secured in the hole and left there to send electric signals to a computer.
The trial is scheduled to last one year, with a possible extension if patients wish to continue.
After the surgery, the patients will participate in BMI experiments to type on a computer, turn lights on and off, and use a robotic prosthetic arm.
In 2013, the team conducted a three-week experiment with an ALS patient after developing a technology that analyses the intended movement of a hand and elbow based on brain wave patterns that appear when one thinks to move body parts.
In the experiment, electrodes were directly placed on the surface of the brain, and the brain was connected to a computer with cables to see if the patient could control it by thinking.
This direct placement of electrodes enables a more accurate and fine reading than measuring brain waves on the scalp. The method has been used in pre-surgery check-ups on epilepsy patients.
Researchers are hoping application of the more direct method to the BMI technology will enable better readings of intended movements by ALS patients.
The downsides of the latest method are the risks stemming from undergoing a craniotomy and having an alien object in the body for the long term.
On the upside, it can reduce the risk of infection when compared with having cables extending through the skin.

Ref: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201612140058.html

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/3352711 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, coking coal miners will be paid 42.5 per cent more for their product in the New Year, after the benchmark contract price for the first quarter of 2017 was settled at the highest price since 2011.
Steelmakers and miners were keen to agree before Christmas on a price for the period between January 1 and March 31, and they have agreed that premium hard coking coal sold under the contract will be priced at $US285 per tonne during the period.
The price was agreed by Glencore (which produces coking coal at the Newlands and Oaky Creek mines in Queensland) and Nippon Steel earlier this week, and matches the price set in the December quarter of 2011.
Miners working under the contract have been receiving $US200 per tonne for their coal since October 1, and they were receiving just $US81 per tonne under the contract price as recently as the first quarter of 2016.
Prices for both coking and thermal coal have rallied strongly since the start of 2016, after China ordered its coal mines to produce less as part of efforts to reform the sector.
Those production cuts combined with supply interruptions in Australia to ensure tight supply for coking coal in particular between June and November.
The highest quarterly contract price ever agreed was in the June quarter of 2011, when miners were paid $US330 for each tonne of coking coal amid supply shortages caused by floods in Queensland.
Glencore and Anglo American both sell their Queensland coking coal under the traditional quarterly contract system, but some like BHP Billiton and Mitsubishi prefer to sell their product at the daily market or "spot" price.
The spot price rallied from $US75 per tonne in February to $US308.80 per tonne in November, by which time BHP was making profit margins of more than $US230 on each tonne of coal sold.
The near-term trajectory of the spot price will likely depend on whether the cyclone season in Queensland causes any disruptions to supply.

Ref: http://www.afr.com/business/mining/bumper-coking-coal-price-agreed-for-march-quarter-20161213-gt9zf7
 
If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/-20172011
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According to The Asahi Shimbun, two major Japanese companies, Panasonic Corp. and Lawson Inc.,have developed the latest checkout machine, “Regirobo”,  which basically does everything apart from choosing the goods you want to buy.  It automatically calculates the bill and even bags the purchased goods.
Regirobo started to be given a test run from Dec. 12 at a Lawson store adjacent to Panasonic’s Osaka head office.
It will be introduced in some outlets of the franchised chain from the latter half of fiscal 2017, and used widely from fiscal 2018.
With Regirobo behind the counter, customers scan each item to a bar code reader attached to a special shopping basket before placing it inside.
At check out, they put the basket into a designated spot, and the total cost is displayed. Then the bottom of the basket slides out and underneath a plastic bag covers the goods.
Regirobo can deal with most products in a store except for magazines, umbrellas, “oden” (fish cakes and other ingredients stewed in a pot of fish broth) and some others.
A more advanced system will be introduced in February with electronic tags attached to each piece of merchandise. Customers will then not need to scan a product to the bar code reader as each item can be automatically registered.
In the future, the system will be combined with a smartphone payment app. Customers will then not even need to go through the ordeal of spending time "shopping" in the store. They can just pick up their pre-bagged products and head off.
This could be a boon for the convenience store industry as it has been finding it difficult to find staff.
"We have a sense of crisis that we will not be able to survive if we keep the current system,” said Lawson President Sadanobu Takemasu.

Ref: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201612130083.html
 
​If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/8610476

According to The Asahi Shimbun, drifting away from traditional techniques that rely solely on experience and gut instinct, fishermen operating in waters off Hokkaido are now shifting to “smart fishing” technology to haul in their catches.
New methods using radar, satellites, tablet apps and other devices are now helping fishermen on the nation’s northernmost island work in a highly efficient manner. The fishing industry is vital for Hokkaido, which is the largest producer of marine products in Japan.
Wakkanai in northern Hokkaido is one of the nation’s prime fishing locations for the giant Pacific octopus. At the Soya Fishing Port in the city, fisherman Satoshi Kakimoto, 43, unloaded 350 kilograms of the squiggly delicacy in mid-October.
His secret? A calendar forecasting ocean current directions and speeds in the area specially designed for octopus fishing.
“We’re starting to get larger octopuses,” the fisherman said. “The current calendar is pretty accurate.”
Known as the Soyamisaki-oki Choryu Calendar (Current calendar of waters off Cape Soya), the calendar was developed by the Hokkaido Research Organization and Hokkaido University’s Institute of Low Temperature Science in 2009.
The year-long calendar is based on observations on the ocean current made by three high-frequency radars installed on the coast of Soya Strait, or La Perouse Strait. The data is assessed together with past records to come up with the average direction and speed of the ocean flows on any given day.
Octopus fishing in Wakkanai often uses “tarunagashi-ryo” (barrel flowing fishing), a fishing method using baited plastic barrels drifting in the ocean. It is a delicate procedure, as octopuses are unable to reach the traps when the currents are too fast. But when the current is too slow, the creatures show no interest in the bait.
It is no surprise that the calendar became an immense help for local octopus fishermen using this method. It is also used to arrange dates of school events at a junior high school in the city where many of the students’ parents are fishermen.
Meanwhile, Hokkaido fishermen specializing in tuna and bonito are utilizing satellite technology to maximize their catches.
Known as the Traceable and Operational Resource and Environment Data Acquisition System, or TOREDAS for short, the technology predicts the movement of fish based on satellite observations on the amount of plankton, ocean currents and water temperature, as well as past data.
The information, provided via satellite communication, is used by about 20 pelagic fishing boats from across Japan.
“Fishing that was dependent on experience and intuition is starting to transform into a ‘fishing of efficiency’ by timely heading toward abundant fishing grounds,” said Seiichi Saito, a research professor of satellite oceanography who heads Hokkaido University’s Arctic Research Centre. He spearheaded the TOREDAS project, which was completed in 2006.
At the same time, information technology is helping fishermen avoid overfishing.
Hokkaido’s Rumoi is a prime producer of sea cucumbers in the nation. But high demand in China in recent years has sent its price skyrocketing, spurring overfishing and poaching.
In response to the alarming trend, the Shinsei Marine Fishery Cooperative, based in the city, has been charting the amount of sea cucumbers harvested on an iPad app starting in 2011.
Using positioning data from GPS devices equipped on fishing boats, the program allows all members of the organization to share information on how many sea cucumbers were fished at which locations, helping fishermen avoid overfishing.
“In Hokkaido, where there are many people involved in the fishing industry, the distance between researchers and fishermen is relatively close, allowing more practical studies to gain headway,” said a Fisheries Agency official.
The Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, the central government’s competitive subsidy program, offers financial assistance to researchers in a number of fields. Regarding the field of fisheries and the hydrosphere, Hokkaido University is one of the top institutions, ranking among the University of Tokyo and national research organizations in the number of grants it received.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, nine of the 73 research institutions on the fishing industry run by prefectural governments are located in Hokkaido. It also has the most researchers among all prefectures.

Ref: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201612100012.html
 
​If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
http://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1401007

According to The Australian Financial Review, a new waterfront stadium, entertainment centre and a brand new waterfront precinct will be some of the outcomes of the new Townsville City Deal, signed by the Australian government, the Queensland government and the City of Townsville council on Friday. 
Townsville's is the first city deal the federal government has unveiled since announcing the scheme with the Western Sydney and Launceston deals in April this year. The deals help to roll out the bigger Smart Cities Plan, which aims to allow urban centres to realise their full potential. 
The Townsville deal is a 15-year plan to supercharge the town into a vibrant capital city for North Queensland through the creation of jobs, stimulation of new economic growth and increased infrastructure spending.
The federal government will contribute $100 million to the plan, while the Queensland government will kick in $140 million.
The local council will contribute prime waterfront land for development including the new stadium. A new Townsville Development Corporation will deliver the urban renewal. 
"At a time when economic growth is hard to deliver, Australia needs to look to its cities as productivity drivers. This is smart economic policy in a time when we need trajectories for growth," Property Council of Australia chief executive Ken Morrison said. 
The governments will also seek private sector partners for the expansion of the Townsville Port, the Townsville Eastern Access Rail Corridor and associated development areas, and the urban renewal of the waterfront and CBD. 
Along with a new stadium scheduled to be completed by the 2020 National Rugby League season and a detailed Townsville plan will be available in March 2017.

Ref: http://www.afr.com/real-estate/australian-government-unveils-first-city-deal-for-townsville-20161209-gt80ev

​If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
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