tokyo's coach drivers spent February
bombarded by a better parking manners
leaflet campaign a fussy push to spare
the capital from a supposed Road
clogging circuit of foreign tourists but
will it be the traffic wardens or the
Bank of Japan that clears the streets
first the congestion peril may be
exaggerated but the underlying numbers
are not Japan's inbound tourism boom
continued a paste last year with a
visitor tally coming in just shy of the
20 million mark a quarter of those were
from mainland China a hundred and seven
percent increase over 2014 analysts at
Nomura predict another twenty-two
percent gain in overall tourist numbers
by the end of 2016 and see the total
surpassing 30 million by the time the
Tokyo Olympics open in 2020 even more
striking is the rising tourist spending
up 71 percent in 2015 and at 3.5
trillion yen now ranked in value
alongside some of japan's most famous
export industries Auto Parts steel
products and electronic components
brokers cycling benefits for retail
transport and property sectors heavily
pitch the tourism story in their efforts
to convince reluctant global fund
managers to pile back into japan's stock
market the fly in the ointment here is
the yin and the tendency of more bullish
observers to underestimate the price
sensitivity of Chinese shoppers
at 120 n to the dollar a Cartier watch
was cheaper in Tokyo than in Seoul or
Hong Kong according to sales staff in
Tokyo's Ginza district the math still
work at current levels of 113 yen to the
dollar but start to fall apart if the
Japanese currency heads much higher
since the Bank of Japan's negative rates
announcement in January the yen has
flatly defied the governor's gambit and
has strengthened some now expected to
break a hundred and ten yen to the
dollar over the next couple of months
after three years supporting the AB
anomic story with its weakness the yen's
supply and demand fundamentals changed
last year are you analysts a JPMorgan
retained corporate earnings abroad are
being repatriated an investment trusts
that bought a record 17 trillion yen in
overseas assets last year are expected
to start unwinding some of that the Bo
J's two-day policy meeting ends on
Tuesday and very few economists expected
to move currency markets are on a hair
trigger but so too are mr. and mrs. Jang
of Guangzhou currently planning where to
go this summer