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courage is contagious

Viewing cable 08OSAKAKOBE110, KANSAI ECONOMIC OUTLOOK: CONCERNS OF FLAGGING

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
08OSAKAKOBE110 2008-05-30 04:29 2011-08-30 01:44 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Consulate Osaka Kobe
VZCZCXRO6533
OO RUEHFK RUEHKSO RUEHNAG RUEHNH
DE RUEHOK #0110/01 1510429
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 300429Z MAY 08
FM AMCONSUL OSAKA KOBE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1110
INFO RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO IMMEDIATE 8240
RUEHKSO/AMCONSUL SAPPORO PRIORITY 0223
RUEHNAG/AMCONSUL NAGOYA PRIORITY 2340
RUEHFK/AMCONSUL FUKUOKA PRIORITY 0213
RUEHNH/AMCONSUL NAHA PRIORITY 0236
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 0429
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 1127
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 OSAKA KOBE 000110 
 
TREASURY FOR CARNES, POGGI AND WINSHIP 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON EFIN PGOV JA
SUBJECT: KANSAI ECONOMIC OUTLOOK: CONCERNS OF FLAGGING 
CONSUMER SENTIMENT DESPITE INVESTMENT BOOM 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED.  NOT FOR INTERNET. 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary. The impact of rising commodity 
prices on consumer sentiment is the biggest threat 
facing the Kansai economy, according to a top official 
at the Osaka branch of the Bank of Japan.  Meeting with 
EMIN May 23, BOJ Osaka Branch Deputy Director Kunio 
Matsuda said his greatest anxiety is that consumers 
will tighten their pursestrings in response to higher 
prices of food, gasoline and other necessities, 
knocking out one of the pillars of growth.  Still, 
Matsuda was generally optimistic about economic 
prospects for the region that includes Osaka, Kobe, and 
Kyoto, pointing to large-scale plant investments by 
Sharp and other manufacturers and emphasizing the 
sometimes overlooked competitiveness of the area's 
large number and variety of small- and medium-sized 
enterprises (SMEs).  Other Kansai-based interlocutors 
echoed Matsuda's views while adding corporate 
relocations from the region to Tokyo as another source 
of concern.  End summary. 
 
2.  (SBU) Meeting with Embassy Tokyo EMIN and ConGen 
poloff May 23, Bank of Japan Osaka Branch Deputy 
Director Kunio Matsuda asserted the psychological 
impact of rising commodity prices on Japanese consumers 
is worse than current inflation data might suggest.  He 
said the year-on-year price hike rate is only around 1 
percent, but consumers feel as if it were 5 percent 
because they pay more at the supermarket and gas 
station even through the prices of big-ticket items 
such as PCs are unchanged.  He said belt-tightening by 
inflation-wary consumers is the biggest economic risk 
for the Kansai region and Japan as a whole.  Concern 
about inflation means the BOJ finds itself in 
unfamiliar territory after a decade of battling 
deflation, Matsuda added.  The central bank now must be 
prepared to hike interest rates if oil prices trigger 
an inflationary spiral and to cut them if flagging 
consumer sentiment drags down the economy.  Former BOJ 
Governor Toshihiko Fukui had an easier time than his 
successor, Masaaki Shirakawa, will, Matsuda suggested. 
 
3.  (SBU) Nevertheless, the BOJ official struck an 
optimistic note about the Kansai's economic prospects. 
He noted large-scale plant investment by manufacturers 
Panasonic and Sharp, the latter spending USD 4 billion 
to build the world's largest flat-panel display factory 
south of Osaka.  Such investment, together with exports 
to emerging markets in Asia, explains why the Kansai 
economy outperformed the national average in recent 
years.  He expects that trend to continue, albeit at a 
slower pace, facilitated by the stability of banks in 
the Kansai.  Unlike a decade ago, when failures rippled 
through the banking sector, lenders in the region are 
now in a position to support investment, he said. 
 
4.  (SBU) Matsuda played down notions the region is 
more vulnerable than others in Japan to competition 
from China and other low-wage countries, given the 
weight of manufacturing and prevalence of SMEs in the 
Kansai's economy.  The share of manufacturing in the 
Kansai area is only 2-3 percent greater than in Kanto, 
Matsuda noted.  Moreover, many SMEs are competitive 
technology-oriented firms, not the old-line suppliers 
or distributors that many imagine. 
 
5.  (SBU) While constituting an important part of the 
Kansai economy, SMEs get little more than lip service 
from local politicians, Matsuda continued.  He said tax 
breaks and other measures to support SMEs are limited 
and limited in their effectiveness, a situation he 
described as unfortunate but difficult to change.  He 
also criticized the GOJ's slowness in confronting the 
implications of Japan's aging population and expressed 
concern that Koizumi-era efforts toward 
decentralization and empowerment of the regions had 
been suspended under Fukuda. 
 
6.  (SBU) Finally Matsuda, talking about the GOJ's 
 
OSAKA KOBE 00000110  002 OF 002 
 
 
recent decision to block The Children's Investment Fund 
from increasing its stake in J-Power, acknowledged that 
the move sent a negative signal to foreign investors, 
but said he did not believe it was the start of a 
trend.  Matsuda added he was encouraged by the 
resulting debate on Japan's openness to FDI. 
 
7.  (SBU) The central bank official's generally 
optimistic outlook was echoed by two Kansai-based 
interlocutors who met separately with EMIN on May 23: 
Takumi Hirai, an economic commentator and associate 
professor at Poole Gakuin University, and Mike Bobrove, 
head of the Kansai Chapter of the American Chamber of 
Commerce in Japan. 
 
8.  (SBU) Noting rising commodity prices and the 
stronger yen posed a double threat to Japan's long 
expansionary trend, Hirai forecasted a "soft landing" 
for the Kansai.  He expects investment to remain high 
for the next quarter, and exports to the rest of Asia 
to be strong for the next two quarters. 
 
9.  (SBU) Hirai cautioned, however, that Kansai-area 
SMEs have not enjoyed significant economic spillover 
from the high-profile investments by Sharp and others. 
Furthermore, SMEs that supply the auto and electronics 
industries will face pressure to cut their prices from 
manufacturers trying to deal with higher raw materials 
costs.  Nippon Steel, he said, will raise the price of 
the steel its supplies to Toyota by 30 percent, leading 
the carmaker to scale back its earnings forecast from 
2.2 to 1.6 trillion yen. 
 
10.  (SBU) Hirai and Bobrove both said the Kansai 
economy continues to suffer from the relocation of the 
head offices of big-name companies to Tokyo, from 
Takeda Pharmaceutical and Nisshin Noodles to Eli Lilly 
Japan.  Hirai said corporate headquarters are centers 
of innovation, which means decisions to move corporate 
headquarters tends to shift those jobs from the region 
as well.  Hirai also thought Kansai has done a poor job 
of promoting itself to foreign investors.  While 
praising the region's economic diversity, Bobrove 
conceded that he would set up his own company (a 
medical equipment supplier) in Tokyo if he could do it 
all over again.  The reasons: to be closer to his 
biggest market and to regulators whose decisions have a 
direct impact on his business. 
 
11.  (U) This cable was cleared with Embassy Tokyo. 
 
RUSSEL