Major department stores kicked off business for 2011 on Sunday as crowds of shoppers sought “lucky bag” filled with discount goods and other New Year bargains.

 

Department stores are hoping the New Year sales will help lead to a recovery in consumption among thrifty consumers.

 

Mitsukoshi Ltd’s flagship store in Tokyo’s Nihombashi district opened at 9:45 a.m., 15 minutes earlier than scheduled, as many people were lined up in front of the store. As one of the features of its New Year sales, the store was offering lucky bags filled with clothing for 10,500 yen.

 

Takashimaya Co prepared luxury lucky bags containing tickets for a cruise tour to the Antarctica, priced at 1.8 million yen, to mark the 180th anniversary of its founding.

 

The Seibu flagship store in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro, meanwhile, offered a series of lucky bags named after recent booms in Japan. They included lucky bags containing outdoor items for ‘‘yama (mountain) girls,’’ the nickname for the growing number of women taking to the hills in fashionable garb, and those including lunchbox and other items for ‘‘bento danshi,’’ or men who fix their own home-made lunches.

 

 

 

 

About 140 companies in Japan is planning to spend some 530 billion yen in capital investment for environment technology-related by the end of fiscal 2011, using state subsidies totaling 110 billion yen.

 

This move is expected to create 95,000 jobs in the companies in the companies. The subsidies are aimed at encouraging capital investment by companies involved in making products including environmentally friendly cars, lithium ion batteries and light-emitting diodes.

 

Among the 142 companies that would receive the subsidies are Toyota Motor Corp, Toshiba Corp, Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corp, as well as two foreign-affiliated companies-GKN Driveline Japan Ltd and Molex Kiire Co.

 

 

 

 

Nearly 70 percent of top managers of 30 leading firms predict the nation's economy will attain positive growth in 2011 for the second straight year, although the strong yen and feeble U.S. economy remain causes for concern.

 

More than two-thirds of top managers expect Japan's real economic growth rate to be 1 percent to less than 1.5 percent this year. 25 of the business leaders believe the economy, which started recovering in spring of 2009, has come to a standstill, with 17 blaming the yen's sharp appreciation since summer 2010 and the uncertain outlook for the U.S. economy.

 

It reflected many business leaders' concern that the strong yen and the slowdown of the U.S. economy have pushed down Japan's exports and production, while the dwindling effect of government stimulus policies--such as the end of government subsidies to purchasers of eco-friendly vehicles--is stifling consumer spending.

 

 

 

 

More than 82.31 trillion yen worth of banknotes were being kept in household or corporate coffers without being deposited at financial institutions by the end of this year, up 1.7% from a year earlier to a record high., according to the bank of Japan.

 

People are tending to keep their money under the mattress given the prolonged ultra-low interest rate policy by the central bank, while companies have secured extra cash reserves, boosting the amount of banknotes that are not deposited. The central bank has kept its key interest rate steady in a range of around zero to 0.1%, which is part of the easing policy the BOJ adopted in October in addition to the launch of a 5 trillion yen asset buying program.

 

 

 

 

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