News & Insights

Japan's real GDP growth rate for April-June 2020 fell 28.1% QoQ annualized, the largest drop ever recorded. The impact of the measures against COVID-19 taken in Japan and overseas to forcibly suspend economic activity has directly hit both domestic and external demand.

In this commentary, we look back at the shareholders' meetings held in June 2020 under COVID-19, and discuss its features, changes, and the efforts to improve corporate governance by Japanese companies.

The number of foreign tourists visiting Japan almost quadrupled between 2012 and 2019. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, it will take some time to achieve the target of 40 million visitors set for 2020 and to recover to levels seen in 2019. Although Japan's tourism industry will take several years to fully recover, we believe that the conditions for recovery are better than those of other countries.

The second supplementary budget for FY2020 including an additional economic stimulus measure against COVID-19 has passed the Diet. The total size of the budget including the first supplementary budget is JPY 234 trillion (approx. USDk9y54; 2.2 trillion), which equates to 42% of GDP. In this commentary, we introduce the contents of the supplementary budget and its impact on the labor and stock markets.