By COLUM MURPHY
SHANGHAI--Nissan Motor Co. 7201.TO -0.39% is considering a new plant in North America to produce at least 100,000 of its premium Infiniti vehicles a year, likely starting in 2017 as the auto maker fans out production globally from Japan.

"One of the challenges we face is that we really do not have a diversified geographical footprint for manufacturing," Infiniti Motor Co. President Johan de Nysschen said Sunday.

Apart from producing one model in the U.S. for global consumption, the Infiniti brand's current production was "totally concentrated" in Japan, he said.

But that is changing. In May 2012 the company announced plans to produce two Infiniti models for the Chinese domestic market in Xiangyang, Hubei province, with Nissan's local partner, Dongfeng Motor Co. Mr. de Nysschen said more details will be announced around the Shanghai auto show, which officially starts April 21.

In addition, premium compact models for the global market will be produced at Nissan's Sunderland plant in the U.K. starting in 2015.

Nissan has been the most aggressive of Japan's Big Three auto makers to shift production outside of the country during recent years. That stems from an effort to lower Nissan's exposure to the yen, make more cars in the markets where the company sells them, and adjust to the rapidly shrinking Japanese vehicle market.

The yen has weakened against the U.S. dollar recently, but only after a run to a strengthening to a record level in October 2011. A strong yen hurts the price competitiveness of Japanese exports and reduces the value of profits earned abroad when they are returned home.

Today SoftBank Capital, the NY-based venture arm of Japan’s largest wireless provider Softbank Corp., has strengthened its ties to Japan even further, announcing that Yahoo! Japan will be injecting $20 million into SoftBank’s early-stage Technology Fund ’10.

early-stage companies who need funding to more mature companies looking to expand into new markets. Yahoo! Japan’s investment will be an addition to the $100 million early-stage fund, which is a complement to the freshly announced PrinceVille fund.

SoftBank announced the $250 million PrinceVille fund back in January, which was aimed to help U.S. markets expand into Asia using SoftBank’s extensive (and growing) network of mentors and partners.

Yahoo! Japan is the largest web portal in Japan and one of the country’s largest e-commerce platforms, and it’s interested in learning more about innovation happening in the United States, with particular focus on social. According to Joe Medved, partner at SoftBank Capital, Yahoo! Japan’s presence in Japan is overwhelming, especially in the quickly evolving mobile landscape.

“Social networking services in Asia tend to be very home grown, but Facebook and Twitter have taken over as global social platforms,” said Medved. “Yahoo! Japan wanted to understand the U.S. market.”

Alongside the new investment from Yahoo! Japan (which, remember, is a separate entity from Marissa Mayer’s ship here in the U.S.), Yahoo! Japan is sending Toshiaki Chiku, the new head of U.S. operations, over to NY where he will work directly with SoftBank Capital to oversee investments and partnership deals.

According to the official press release (via Nielsen), Yahoo! Japan reaches 80 percent of Japan’s internet users through its various web portals and services. Not only will Yahoo! Japan get a clearer window into the U.S. market, but companies looking to tap into the fast-paced Asian market will have a solid Goliath-style partner in Japan to back them up.

Specifically, SoftBank and Yahoo! Japan will be looking to invest in mobile, social, ecommerce, online advertising, gaming, and cloud computing spaces. Obviously, each one of these markets is chock-full of prime options, but SoftBank seems to have a mind for taking on big winners.

The firm’s previous exits include BlueFin Labs, which was recently acquired by Twitter, BuddyMedia’s acquisition to SalesForce.com, Huffington Post’s acquisition by Aol, and Zynga’s acquisition of OMGPOP.

The number of teachers hired for the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program would be doubled in three years under a proposal drafted by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to boost Japan’s global competitiveness and nurture international talent.

According to the draft of a midterm report by the LDP’s economic revitalization headquarters obtained Monday, the number of JET teachers would be increased to 10,000 from about 4,360 in 2012. The teachers also would be dispatched to all elementary, junior high and high schools within 10 years.

The JET Program was targeted for wasteful spending by the Democratic Party of Japan’s “shiwake” government revitalization unit before the young party was kicked out of power in the Lower House election in December.

The LDP views the use of native English speakers as vital to improving English-speaking ability at a time when it is moving toward making a passing score on the Test of English as Foreign Language mandatory for entering and graduating from college.

The proposal is in line with the growth strategies Prime Minister Shinzo Abe mapped out last Friday ahead of the July Upper House election. The strategies include globalizing the Japanese workforce and increasing the number of women in it by extending the length of maternity leave to three years from 18 months.

The proposal will be part of Abe’s real basic economic policies, which are being compiled by the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy for release in June — just a month before the House of Councilors election in July.

The last time Masao Namiki bought machinery for his company, Emperor Hirohito had just died, Japanese investors took the Rockefeller Center as a trophy, and a new central bank chief was about to prick the bubble economy. It was 1989.

The $1 million Namiki borrowed to outfit his workshop with computerized lathes and drills almost bankrupted him as orders from clients Canon Inc., Panasonic Corp. and NEC Corp. evaporated. As interest rates cranked up to 6 percent, crashing stock and land prices wiped out $15 trillion in wealth and triggered an economic malaise that still drags on.

The bubble, and the five recessions since, help explain why business owners like Namiki aren’t buying into investor euphoria over new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign to end deflation. Even after the steepest five-month slide in the yen for 18 years made global companies like Toyota Motor Corp (7203). more competitive and Japan the world’s best-performing major stock market, Namiki said he’s still not ready to invest.

“If we had the orders I’d think about adding equipment, but right now the work’s just not there,” the 72-year-old said at his small factory in Tokyo’s Ota district, where he and a handful of employees have made thousands of steel molds for phones, stereos, and keyboards. “The manufacturers are still in wait-and-see mode.”

The reluctance to borrow and spend of companies like Namiki’s that don’t operate abroad and make up the bulk of Japan’s economy is the biggest threat to Abe’s plans, said Nomura Research Institute Chief Economist Richard Koo.

‘Bottleneck’“The greatest bottleneck in the private-sector economy today is the lack of private-sector borrowers,” said Koo. “That comes from the fact that they went through this balance- sheet correction for the last 20 years. Americans went through the same thing in the 1930s, and many who lived through the Great Depression never borrowed again.”

Japan’s trauma was greater still, Koo said. The wealth lost was three times gross domestic product. The U.S. crash cost a year of 1929 GDP. And just when Japan was showing signs of recovery, the 2009 global financial crisis hit. Then came the 2011 tsunami. After all that, the Nikkei 225 Stock Average is two-thirds off its 1989 peak. Land is cheaper than in 1981.

To jump start investment, Abe and his handpicked Bank of Japan governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, said they will double the money circulating in the economy to drive inflation to 2 percent within two years, remove structural barriers to growth and add fiscal stimulus with tax cuts and other incentives.

Tokyo continues to be the world's largest urban area with more than 37 million people, according to the recently released 9th Annual edition of Demographia World Urban Areas. Tokyo has held the top position for nearly 60 years, since it displaced New York. There have been only modest changes in the ranking of the world's largest urban areas over the past year. The top four urban areas remain the same, with Jakarta (Jabotabek) second, Seoul third and Delhi fourth. Fast-growing Shanghai, however, assumed fifth place, displacing Manila where the latest census data showed less population growth than had been expected.

Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Rakuten, says mandating that his employees speak English at work was tougher than expected; it slowed meetings and embarrassed senior managers. But Mikitani says he's sticking with it.

#tru organizes a series of recruiting unconferences around the globe.

This coming Monday, April 22nd, #tru will hold a recruiting unconference at the Tokyo American Club (TAC) .

#tru are BarCamp principle-based conferences where recruiters, HR specialists, headhunters and related parties can share their experience an informal environment.

Start Date:  Monday, April 22, 2013 
End Date:   Monday, April 22, 2013 
Time:          9:00 AM  to 6:00 PM
Venue:        Tokyo American Club, 2-1-2 Azabudai Minato-ku Tokyo.
Access:      Directions how to get to the Tokyo American Club (TAC)

Please visit the globaltru.com website for more information

The champagne used to flow at Heartland, the bar in Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills complex that drew bankers from the Japan headquarters of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. upstairs.

“Every day, there was a party,” said Mai Shioya, the 39- year-old manager, who started in May 2008 before the global financial crisis that led to Lehman’s bankruptcy.

Bankers in well-cut suits would come in about 5 p.m., hand bartenders corporate credit cards and let their friends charge drinks to the tab until 2 a.m., said Michio Nakamura, 45, who’s been running events and entertainment at Heartland since its opening as part of the famed Roppongi Hills development in 2003. After the financial crisis, many disappeared, cutting revenue by 30 percent, Shioya said.

“Those customers and that age have gone,” she said.

The void is being filled by a new group of bar patrons: information-technology workers. While financial firms have cut staff in Japan, technology companies have boosted hiring, and as bankers vacated offices at Roppongi Hills, companies including Google Inc. (GOOG) and Lenovo Group Ltd. (992)moved in. As early as this month, Apple Inc. (AAPL) will also make the complex its home in Japan, two people familiar with the plan said in January.

Japan's electronic giants once ruled the world. Sony, Panasonic, Sharp were household names. Now those same companies are in deep trouble, losing billions of dollars a year. How have the mighty Japanese companies fallen so low? The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo looks at what went wrong.

If you want to get an idea of what's gone wrong with Japan's electronics industry go for a ride on the Tokyo metro.

The Tokyo metro (or a lot of it) now has 3G mobile reception. But you're not allowed to talk on your mobile phone on public transport in Japan, so everyone in my carriage was busily texting away on their 3G devices.

And what particular device were they using? A quick survey of the carriage I was in found about 80% were holding an Apple iPhone.

That's admittedly not a scientific result - but the evidence is pretty stark. Where once everyone would have been listening to a Sony Walkman, today it is Apple and Samsung that dominate, even here on Sony's home ground.

The evidence can also been seen in their financial results. Japan's electronic giants are bleeding red ink.

Sony may make a small profit this year, its first since 2008. Panasonic (formerly Matsushita) is expected to post a $9bn (£6bn) loss this year. Sharp, which is much smaller, is losing money so fast it will not survive another year without a major infusion of cash.

So what went wrong?

Japan Readies 'Third Arrow'
New Government Wants Silicon Valley-Style Disruption to Help Revitalize Economy

BY DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI AND MAYUMI NEGISHI

TOKYO—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the scion of a political dynasty and embodiment of the Japanese establishment, and Hiroshi Mikitani, an Internet billionaire and iconoclast, make for unlikely allies. But they are joining forces to bring a little Silicon Valley disruptiveness to the country's Old Guard.

Since Mr. Abe took office in December, Mr. Mikitani, founder and chief executive of Japan's biggest online retailer Rakuten Inc., has been one of the main corporate backers of his government's push to deregulate and overhaul the regimented Japanese economy.

The structural measures are meant to be the "third arrow" of Mr. Abe's economic strategy, ...