The consumption tax rate was to be raised to 10 percent from 12 a.m. on Tuesday.

Major restaurant chains and retailers are pushing new services in an effort to maintain sales levels in the face of Tuesday's hike in the consumption tax rate from 8 percent to 10 percent. Companies are thinking up new ways to try to ease the burden consumers are feeling.

Crickets, scorpions and giant water bugs. They seem to have nothing in common, but they are all in fact prime candidates as foodstuffs. In an effort to alleviate food shortages accompanying world population growth, a United Nations body is also encouraging insect consumption, which has been booming, particularly among young…

Shinzo Abe will almost certainly become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister next month. Whether he’ll be remembered as a success could well hinge on how the country’s economy weathers what happens today.

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), the Democratic Party for the People (DPFP), the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Reviewing Group on Social Security Policy on Monday notified both houses of the Diet of the formation of a unified group. The number of lawmakers belonging to the new…

Japan’s economy risks being derailed for a third time by a sales tax hike this week if shoppers like 63-year-old Kuriko Iwaki suddenly close their wallets.