Government Bonds Quotes

Government Bonds
                                                                                         Price           Yield
                                                                                        Change           %

U.S. 5 Year			-1/32	1.386
U.S. 10 Year			-2/32	2.583
U.S. 30 Year			-1/32	3.643
Germany 2 Year			0/32	0.155
Germany 10 Year			0/32	1.676
Italy 2 Year			0/32	1.978
Italy 10 Year			0/32	4.390
Japan 2 Year			0/32	0.134
Japan 10 Year			3/32	0.792
Spain 2 Year			0/32	1.868
Spain 10 Year			0/32	4.632
U.K. 2 Year			0/32	0.326
U.K. 10 Year			0/32	2.381

  Source: WSJ

Japanese Investors buying Foreign Bonds

Japanese investors snapped up foreign bonds for a third straight week last week and analysts say that the long-awaited trend may be finally under way, signaling the next leg lower for the yen.

Data released on Thursday showed Japanese investors bought a net 549.3 billion yen ($5.48 billion) of foreign bonds in the week to July 20. That followed net buying worth about 1.106 trillion yen in the previous week, the largest amount since September 2012.July looks set to be the first month of net foreign bond buying in six months, Reuters reported.

Some Board members of BOJ doubt success of Abenomics

Some Bank of Japan policymakers are becoming more vocal in expressing concerns about the economic outlook, threatening to pick away at what has been a unified public position of optimism key to the central bank's reflationary message.

The three policymakers on the nine-member board see more risks than their colleagues from Japan's planned increase in a domestic sales tax in April, a contentious issue Prime Minister Shinzo Abe must deal with after his resounding election victory on Sunday.They are also more concerned than the others about a slowdown in China's economic growth, which has become more apparent in recent months.
With the economy responding well to the Abenomics phenomenon of aggressive monetary policy, fiscal spending and the promise of economic reform, the pessimists see no imminent need for additional growth stimulus.
But their doubts may gain more traction next year once Japan feels the pinch of the sales tax hike and China's slowdown, and so undermine the BOJ's relatively upbeat message. The BOJ's economic forecasts project a stronger recovery than private analysts by some margin as the central bank targets turning years of deflation into 2 percent inflation in two years.
"Still, the pessimists have a point. Even the optimists aren't convinced that everything is on track. There's still a long way ahead to achieving 2 percent inflation."

The pessimists' concerns may also win over the board into taking stronger money market measures if government bond yields spike again, unlike in recent months when the central bank refused to be drawn into taking stronger measures as 10-year returns jumped to 1 percent from just 0.3 percent

Source: NewsonJapan

China's Central Bank liberalize interest rates for loans

China's central bank announced interest rate reforms on Friday that are a milestone in China's financial marketization. It removed the floor on lending rates, allowing banks to cut rates as much as they like to attract customers, scrapped the controls on bill discount rates and lifted the ceiling on lending for rural banks. However, it did not remove the ceiling on deposit rates.
The long-term benefits of lifting controls on lending rates cannot be underestimated as it is the start of China's market-oriented reform of its financial market. Before the latest reforms the interest rates for both loans and deposits had controls relating to the benchmark rate and were strictly regulated by government.

Meanwhile, the central bank's relaxation on bill discount rates means that banks can set their own prices. This change is good for guiding the market to use the Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate in the interest rate pricing process, which is a market-oriented practice, rather than using the benchmark interest rate as before.

Moreover, such a change will help promote interest rate liberalization. The central bank, instead of relying on the open market, can widely use the short-term interbank offered rate to regulate market liquidity as developed countries do.

The reforms mean banks will now give risk pricing to different borrowers based on their credit situation. However, this means banks will need to improve their risk pricing ability, which requires the establishment of an effective credit appraisal system as well. This will allow banks to compete on price.

Interest rate liberalization in China is being carried out gradually, and to some extent, that is why many problems in financial market exist.

The key is freeing deposit rates. A liberation of deposit rates would force banks to carry out effective risk pricing considering the floating costs and make them more cautious and rational in their commercial activities. Therefore, after removing the control on the interest rates for lending, China should seek to liberate the deposit rates in a timely manner.

Source: Xinhua

Precious Metals Prices

Gold Price Futures     3 months          US$  1,338.69

Silver Price Futures   3 months           US$     20.26

EIA report Present and Future of Energy demand Part I

The IEA in its latest report International Energy 2013 Outlook projects that "total world energy
use rises from 524 quadrillion British thermal units(Btu) in 2010 to 630 quadrillion Btu in 2020
and to quadrillion Btu in 2040".
   Much of the growth in energy consumption occurs in the BRIC economies Brazil,Russia,India and China.
   "Energy use in non-OECD countries increases by 90 percent; in OECD countries, the increase is 17 percent".
   Renewable energy and nuclear power are the world's fastest-growing energy source.However, fossil fuels continue to supply almost 80 percent of world energy use through 2040. Natural gas is the fastest-growing fossil fuel in the outlook. Global natural gas consumption increases by 1.7 percent per year. Increasing supplies of tight gas, shale gas, and coalbed methane support growth in projected worldwide natural gas use. Coal use grows faster than petroleum and other liquid fuel use until after 2030, mostly because of increases in China's consumption of coal and tepid growth in liquids demand attributed to slow growth in the OECD regions and high sustained oil prices.
  The industrial sector continues to account for the largest share of delivered energy consumption; the world industrial sector still consumes over half of global delivered energy in 2040. Given current policies and regulations limiting fossil fuel use, worldwide energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rise from about 31 billion metric tons in 2010 to 36 billion metric tons in 2020 and then to 45 billion metric tons in 2040, a 46% increase.
 Because of the uncertainty of the present world economic conditions it is difficult to project growth rates of the developed 
countries,and economic unions and those of the emerging markets.
The report assumes world's real GDP rises by an average of 3.6 % per year from 2010 to 2040. The fastest rates of growth are projected for the emerging economies, where combined GDP increases by 4.7% per year. In the OECD  GDP grows at a much slower rate of 2.1% per yeart. The strong growth in non- OECD GDP drives the fast-paced growth in future energy consumption projected for these nations.
In the long term, the IEO2013Reference case projects increased world consumption of marketed energy from all fuel sources through 2040 . Although liquid fuels—mostly petroleum-based—remain the largest source of energy, the liquids share of world marketed energy consumption falls from 34 percent in 2010 to 28 percent in 2040, as projected high world oil prices lead many energy users to switch away from liquid fuels when feasible. The fastest growing sources of world energy in the Reference case are renewables and nuclear power. In the Reference case, the renewables share of total energy use rises from 11 percent in 2010 to 15 percent in 2040, and the nuclear share grows from 5 percent to 7 percent.

U.S. Energy Secretary small but continued growth of electric vehicle sales.

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz today "highlighted the continued growth of electric vehicle sales – doubling in the first 6 months of 2013 compared to the same period in 2012" – as the Energy Department released its most recent pricing data showing the low cost of fueling on electricity.  The eGallon, a quick and simple way for consumers to compare the costs of fueling electric vehicles vs. driving on gasoline, rose slightly to $1.18 from $1.14 in the latest monthly numbers, but remains far below the $3.49 cost of a gallon of gasoline. 

Plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) sales tripled from about 17,000 in 2011 to about 52,000 in 2012.  During the first six months of 2013, Americans bought over 40,000 plug-in electric vehicles (PEV), more than twice as many sold during the same period in 2012. 

The latest numbers also show how the early years of the PEV market have seen much faster growth than the early years of the hybrid vehicle market.  Thirty months after the first hybrid was introduced, monthly sales figures were under 3,000.

Fed would refine forward guidance monetary policy

According to the Wall Street Journal "The Federal Reserve is on track to keep its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program in place at its policy meeting next week, but officials likely will debate changes to the way the central bank describes its plans for the program and for short-term interest rates"
.At their July 30-31 meeting, Fed officials are likely to discuss whether to refine or revise "forward guidance," the words they use to describe their intentions for the next few years.
US Central Bank Chairman has said that it intends to keep short-term interest rates near zero at least until the jobless rate drops to 6.5% or unless inflation rises to a 2.5% annualized rate. 
Some Fed officials argue it would be too soon to raise short-terrm rates even after joblessness drops below 6.5%. In part, they see inflation as unthreatening, which means rates can stay low longer. They fear the jobless rate, now 7.6%, doesn't reflect other weaknesses in the labor market, such as people leaving the workforce or working part time when they want full-time work.
Futures markets suggest investors are back to believing a series of rate increases aren't likely until 2015. As a result, officials might decide to avoid any change in their message and leave well enough alone for now.

Source: WSJ

Precious Metals Prices

Gold Price Futures    3months      US$ 1,331.97

Silver Price Futures   3months      US$     20.23

China´s job market grows. But employment pressure remains

Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security spokesman Yin Chengji said at a press conference that China created more jobs in the first half compared with the same period last year.

igures from the ministry showed that China added 7.25 million jobs in the first six months of the year, an increase of 310,000 year on year. The registered urban unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent at the end of the second quarter.

The government has set a goal of creating no less than 9 million jobs this year, with the full-year unemployment rate set to reach less than 4.6 percent.

Yin said the service sector, particularly Internet-related businesses, has helped absorb new labor.

He said the employment situation in east China has improved in the last two months, with a rebound in monthly figures. The number of newly-added jobs increased rapidly in underdeveloped west China, while that of central China remained stable in the first six months.

Source Xinhua

China´s textile industry facing challenges.

China's cotton textile industry is facing difficult challenges, as sales have been poor amid the weak recovery of the international market, as well as domestic factors.

The Fujian Hongyuan Group, located in southeast China's Fujian Province, is the largest cotton textile enterprise in the province, with an annual output value of 1 billion yuan (163 million U.S. dollars).

Statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the added value of the textile industry from January to June was greater than that of the same period last year. However, exports to Europe, Japan and other major overseas markets have plunged.

Statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the added value of the textile industry from January to June was greater than that of the same period last year. However, exports to Europe, Japan and other major overseas markets have plunged.

"Although a rebound in textile product exports has been seen in the past six months, things do not look optimistic for the second half. It may be worse than the first half and could plunge even further in the future," said Chen Cangsong, vice president of Hongyuan. 

The Chinese government started purchasing cotton for temporary state reserve in 2011 in order to protect cotton farmers' interests. As a result, domestic cotton prices became higher than those of the global market.

Domestic cotton prices stood at about 19,000 yuan per tonne this year, 3,500 to 4,000 yuan higher than the price of imported cotton.

However, imported cotton has been hit with high tariffs and enterprises who want imported cotton must abide by a strict quota system.

Since southeast Asian nations like Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and Cambodia can freely purchase cotton at a price of about 13,000 yuan per tonne and have lower labor costs, those countries are seeing an increasing number of orders from European markets that used to order from China.

Source Xinhua

Initial jobless claims rose 7,000.

Initial jobless claims rose 7,000 in the July 20 week to 343,000 with the 4-week average down slightly to 345,250. The trend for the data are flat, pointing to no discernible improvement underway in the jobs market.

Once in a while continuing claims, which are reported with a 1-week delay, get some attention and that may be the case to a degree for today's report as the reporting period, the week ending July 13, is also the sample week for the monthly employment report. And the data for the week show big improvement with a 119,000 decline to 2.997 million. But the decline only partially reverses big increases of 93,000 and 70,000 in the prior two weeks and leaves the 4-week average at 3.022 million which is still more than 40,000 higher than the month-ago comparison. The unemployment rate for insured workers dipped back 1 tenth to 2.3 percent but is unchanged compared to a month ago.

July is the time that automakers shut down their factories for retooling and put their workers on leave, which brings into play major adjustment issues and substantially clouds the data. Don't expect today's report to have much influence at all on the jobs outlook or the markets. 

Durable Good Orders surged 4.2% in June.Nondefense aircraft gained 31.4%.Excluding Transportation,Durable oders were unchanged in June

Durables orders sharply beat expectations at the headline level but it was almost entirely due to aircraft orders at Boeing. Elsewhere, durables orders were mixed, ending net at flat for June. New factory orders for durables in June surged 4.2 percent, following an upward revised 5.2 percent (originally 3.7 percent) for May. Market expectations were for a 1.5 percent boost for June. The transportation component spiked 12.8 percent after a 14.8 percent jump in May. Excluding transportation, durables orders were unchanged in June, following a 1.0 percent rise in May. The consensus expected a 0.6 percent decrease in orders excluding transportation.

Unfilled orders, however suggest some overall continuing momentum for manufacturing. Overall unfilled orders jumped 2.1 percent in June, following a 1.1 percent increase in May. This was mostly aircraft but non-transportation was still respectable. Unfilled durables excluding transportation increased 0.9 percent in June, matching the May pace.

Turning back to new orders data, within transportation, motor vehicles gained 1.3 percent, nondefense aircraft jumped 31.4 percent, and defense aircraft increased 18.7 percent. Outside of transportation, components were mixed but net zero. Gains were seen in fabricated metals, machinery, and "other." Declines were seen in primary metals, computers & electronics, and electrical equipment.

Precious Metals Quotes

Gold Price        3months Futures        US$ 1,322.48

Silver Price       3months Futures        US$     20.13

Foreign Tourists to Japan increased 22.8% in H1

The number of foreign visitors to Japan in January-June rose 22.8 pct from a year before to an estimated 4,954,600, hitting a record high for the first-half period, the Japan National Tourism Organization said Wednesday.

The increase came as the yen's recent weakening made travel to Japan cheaper, according to the government-affiliated agency. Also behind the growth were service launches by new low-cost carriers.The number of visitors increased for the second straight year on a first-half basis, according to the JNTO.

Precious Metals Quotes

Gold Price     3months futures    US$ 1,320.56

Silver Price    3months futures    US$     20.09

China disputes with Japan territorial waters near Senkaku Islands

The Japan Coast Guard has spotted Chinese coast guard ships for the first time near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, Japanese officials said Wednesday.

Chinese patrol boats Haijing 2101, Haijing 2166, Haijing 2350 and Haijing 2506 were seen entering the contiguous zone surrounding territorial waters around Kubajima, one of the five Senkaku islands, between 10:50 a.m. (1:50 a.m. GMT) and 11 a.m., according to the 11th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters in Naha.

Japan Coast Guard ships told the Chinese ships not to approach Japanese waters. The Haijing 2350 replied in Chinese and Japanese that the ships were patrolling waters under Chinese jurisdiction, the Japanese officials said.

Investors are selling bonds and buying money-market mutual funds,not stocks.

Investors are cashing out of bonds but remain hesitant to plunge into stocks, preferring instead to buy money-market mutual funds despite their low returns. The surprise move highlights persistent investor anxiety with equities even as stock indexes reach new highs.

Investors withdrew an estimated $43 billion from taxable bond mutual funds last month, the largest-ever monthly outflow, according to the Investment Company Institute. The debt-market swoon was fueled by worries that the Federal Reserve was softening its commitment to keeping interest rates low. Rising interest rates mean lower bond prices.

Many observers expected to see those flows turn to funds tracking U.S. stocks. But in a twist, the main beneficiary of the rush out of bonds has been money-market funds, which are cash-like investments that appeal to safety-minded investors.Assets in these portfolios increased for the fourth week in a row in the week ended July 17, rising $8.5 billion to $2.6 trillion, ICI data show. That left money-market funds, which pay barely more than simply holding dollars, with the most cash since early April.

The shift highlights the uncertain investing outlook at a time of near record-low interest rates and tepid economic growth, along with the risk aversion that has sent money into bond funds following the stock-market plunge of 2008.

Source: WSJ

China: A Railway development fund will created with Government Resources.

Upcoming reforms will completely open China's railway construction market, according to a statement released Wednesday after an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.
A railway development fund will be established using government investment and social capital, the statement said, adding that local regions and social capital will have ownership and management rights for inter-city railway links and municipal rail links.

Government investment and the railway system's financing have long been the primary sources of capital for railway construction. However, these limited channels have become increasingly unable to meet demand for capital.

Analysts said the sector should diversify and attract more social capital for construction projects by breaking up monopolies and investment barriers.

The government will prioritize railway construction in central and west China, as well as poor parts of the country, in order to boost urbanization and coordinated development between regions.

 During the 2013-2015 period, major railway construction projects will be initiated in a timely way and progress according to plan, the statement said.

Source: Xinhua

Asian maritime disputes and Neighbours of China containment Geopolitics

"The dominant Western strategic discourse today is about the rise of Asia. This Asian growth story is however not without its challenges, according to this discourse. Maritime disputes, nuclear proliferation, China-India rivalry in the Indian Ocean, China-Japan-Vietnam rivalry, and other examples of discord, are being increasingly interpreted as existential threats to the international system. Why? Because like Europe in the past, Asian rivalries for power and influence is bound to be conflict-prone. This aspect is so over-emphasized that one worries if it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and result in an Asian War. 
A close look at this dominant strategic discourse reveals a few points as most insistent over others. First, Asia is an emerging economic powerhouse and will host some of the richest countries in the world by 2030. Second, this economic rise will quickly result in rapid military modernizations. Third, Asian military modernization will lead to conflict especially over territorial issues. Fourth, these conflicts will get even more entrenched as China aims to become the hegemon in Asia. 
These developments are having a major impact on the geopolitics of the region. It seems a sound idea to form 
countervailing alliances especially strategic partnerships between China's neighbors and the United States 
including military alliances, in order to keep China contained.

Asian countries believe that military partnerships and strategic alignments against China would only make China more aggressive in its desire to break out of that circle of containment. 
The discourse on rising competition and eventual Asian war forewarns the people of Asia given their experiences of wars between Asian states not so long ago.  Those memories continue to linger, through stories handed down by earlier generations, popular culture and academic writings. 

Hence, there are two discourses in the world today. A dominant Western one views Asia as a vehicle of economic growth and military competition, resulting in plausible military conflict. The alternative discourse is the Asian "cautionary" discourse about Asia's rise, where talk of wars and military interventions of any kind is treated with extreme caution. 
Neighbouring Asian countries and India are concerned about  China's recent territorial aggression in the South and East China Seas, and India's border. However, none of them would want to live through an Asian military conflict over territorial differences. Hence, there is a growing determination to create the regional institutional mechanisms to avert the negative impacts of China's rise and instead showcase the positive aspects: a country rising from tremendous hardships internally to become one of Asia's own success story. It is rather important 
that the West pay more attention to this alternative discourse".

AsiaTimes Dr Namrata Goswami

Shanghai's success as a business hub

 The continued expansion of the service sector and renewed attraction of foreign investment helped Shanghai's economic performance in the first half of the year to beat the national average.

The city's gross domestic product from January to June grew 7.7 percent year-on-year, exceeding the national average by 0.1 of a percentage point, the municipal government announced on Tuesday.

The better-than-anticipated economic output suggested the business hub's attempts toward a more value-added economy have started to pay dividends, experts said. The reading also marked the first economic rebound since last year, when Shanghai's growth eased to 7.5 percent, missing the national target.

Looking further ahead, economists predict an increasing share of growth impetus will come from the free trade zone, which, they said, will help to redefine Shanghai's position as a services center of international stature.

In the first six months of the year, the service sector, which encompasses property, finance, telecommunications and tourism, outpaced that of the agricultural and industrial sectors to grow at 9.6 percent, claiming 61.7 percent of the city's GDP.

The figure showed a continued expansion by 1.3 percentage points from the same time last year, reflecting the increasing pace of its transformation into a service-oriented economy, said Yan Jun, chief economist at Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau.

The surge was led by fixed-asset investment from the service sector, such as commercial rents, which advanced by 16.7 percent year-on-year, taking up the lion's share of overall input.

The sector also gained the most traction in foreign direct investment, where $10 billion worth of contracted foreign capital was garnered, up 10.1 percent. The amount was equal to 88 percent of all investment drawn in during the period.

The financial sector also posted robust annual growth of 14.7 percent. For instance, transaction volumes of shares traded at the Shanghai Stock Exchange grew by 14.3 percent year-on-year

But overall economic growth was snagged by a deeper slowdown in trade and manufacturing, at a time when global economic uncertainty lingers.

Trade volumes shrank 3.7 percent, with a drop in exports by 4.3 percent and imports by 3.2 percent.

A 1.9 percent ebb in the producer price index, a key gauge indicating the health of the manufacturing sector, pointed to a contraction in demand.

A pickup in the pace of growth indicates the transformation toward a service-oriented economy has borne fruit, said Sun Lijian, professor of economics at Fudan University in Shanghai.

"We are starting to see new areas of growth that may offset the loss from the restructuring process, which is characterized by the shift from a manufacturing-based, export-led economy, to one driven by domestic consumption and the development of services," he said.

Yan believes the forthcoming free trade zone will further beef up growth and catapult Shanghai to the forefront of global trade and financial hubs.

"Instead of simply policy incentives, the zone is an 'institutional arrangement' for Shanghai to carry out various trade and financial experiments," he said.

Source: Xinhua

China's new rules for FX in the Services Trade

China will expedite foreign exchange transactions in the services trade by streamlining administrative procedures, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) announced Wednesday.

Under the new rules, which will be effective from Sept. 1, a forex payment or settlement transaction in the services trade that is equivalent to 50,000 U.S. dollars or less can proceed without having to verify its transaction documents, the SAFE said in an online statement.

The simplified procedure is expected to benefit about 88 percent of China's services-trade-related forex transactions, according to SAFE data.

Other measures unveiled on Wednesday include those to allow services trade forex transactions to be handled directly at financial institutions and to permit companies in the services trade to deposit their foreign currency earnings overseas.

While loosening controls, the SAFE also vowed to ramp up supervision of the services trade forex flowing into and out of the country in order to prevent risks.

China has been emphasizing the service sector's role in lifting growth and creating jobs amid the country's recent economic slowdown.

The service sector accounted for roughly 44.6 percent of China's GDP in 2012, and policymakers aim to raise that to 47 percent by 2015.

China will suspend VAT on small businesses

China will suspend the value-added tax (VAT) and turnover tax on small businesses with monthly sales of less than 20,000 yuan (3,226 U.S. dollars) from Aug. 1.

The announcement was made in a statement released Wednesday after an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

The move will benefit more than six million small companies and directly relate to tens of millions of people, the statement said.

VAT refers to a tax levied on the difference between a commodity's price before taxes and its cost of production. Turnover tax refers to a levy on the gross revenue of a business.

The meeting also discussed measures to facilitate foreign trade and stabilize exports such as simplifying customs clearance, cutting operational fees, increasing financial support for profitable companies, facilitating exports of small and mid-sized private enterprises, increasing imports and maintaining a stable RMB exchange rate.

The country will fully open up its railway construction market through reforms and give priority to railway construction in the central and western regions as well as poor areas, according to the statement.

Source: Xinhua

Government Bonds Quotes

Government Bonds

                                                                                                           Yield
                                                                                  Price Change      %

U.S. 5 Year			-10/32	1.380
U.S. 10 Year			-21/32	2.590
U.S. 30 Year			-1 4/32	3.647
Germany 2 Year			-1/32	0.162
Germany 10 Year			-28/32	1.650
Italy 2 Year			0/32	1.969
Italy 10 Year			-2/32	4.362
Japan 2 Year			0/32	0.130
Japan 10 Year			2/32	0.774
Spain 2 Year			1/32	1.889
Spain 10 Year			-5/32	4.697
U.K. 2 Year			-2/32	0.366
U.K. 10 Year			-23/32	2.397

 Government bond prices fell today due to better than expected German, EU & US indicators

                July                                  Real     Expected

 German Markit Services PMI        52.50         50.8

 German Markit Manufacturing      50.30         49.40

 PMI

 EU Markit Manufacturing PMI     50.10          49.20

 EU Markit Services PMI                49.60         48.5

 

 U.S. New Home Sales                    497k          481k

 U.S.Manufacturing Index

 Flash                                                53.2           52.8

 

Japan is close to escape from deflation

Japan's economy is on the verge of escaping from nearly two decades of deflation as it has picked up since the beginning of this year, a government report said Tuesday, emphasizing positive aspects of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies dubbed "Abenomics."

The country's economy trapped in prolonged deflation "has shown signs of turning around," said the white paper on the economy and finances for fiscal 2013 released by the Cabinet Office, adding, "Consumer preference for lower-priced products has been waning."

Deflation pushed down Japan's real gross domestic product by around 8.5 trillion yen for three years from fiscal 2009, as an upturn in real interest rates made companies and households reluctant to take out loans to boost investment, the report said.

Source: NewsonJapan