Japan

Nippon Shinko - the first non-internet bank to be awarded a banking licence in Japan since 1954 - opened its doors for business in downtown Tokyo late last month.

The government will soon have to tread a fine line between heeding small firms' calls to expand its loan guarantee service and nursing the default insurance system back to financial health.

Mizuho Corporate Bank, a unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc., has formed an alliance with the Bank of China in the area of receivables factoring.

A missing piece of Japan's recent economic recovery is beginning to fall into place. Large goods-producing exporters had been the driving force behind the revival.

Demand for funds has improved markedly among small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs), according to a Bank of Japan (BOJ) survey released Friday.

In December, Mizuho Corporate Bank, a unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc, will begin buying Chinese receivables from Japanese companies and selling them to Chinese banks, while Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, a unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Grou

Japan's small business confidence rose in September to its highest level in three years, boosted by accelerating growth in the world's second-biggest economy, industry figures released in Tokyo showed.

Japan has been growing faster than the US for the first time since 1991, according to revised second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) figures released on 10 September.

The Kansai industrial region, regarded as one of the most depressed in Japan, has begun to grow faster than the national average thanks in part to rapid export growth to China, according to Yoshihisa Akiyama, chairman of the Kansai Economic Federa

The Japanese government plans to resume its credit insurance programme for exports to Iraq on a full-scale basis by the end of this month at the earliest, officials at an affiliate with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) said Monda