Japan to Hold 1st Summit with 5 Central Asian Countries

Mizuho Financial Group Inc. said Wednesday that it will acquire Indian investment bank Avendus Capital Private Ltd. for a maximum of around 47 billion Indian rupees to strengthen its operations in the growing Indian capital market.

Japan's Ministry of Finance disclosed Wednesday a fifth set of documents related to a dubious land sale to Moritomo Gakuen to the widow of a MOF regional official who committed suicide after being ordered to tamper with official records on the sale.

The Japanese government will hold the first summit meeting with five Central Asian countries in Tokyo for two days from Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara announced Wednesday.

The Diet, Japan's parliament, concluded its 58-day extraordinary session Wednesday after passing a fiscal 2025 supplementary budget and legislation to abolish the provisional gasoline tax surcharge.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, aborted the launch of an H3 rocket on Wednesday after detecting a ground equipment anomaly.

Victims of an arson attack on a psychosomatic clinic in Osaka were remembered on Wednesday, the fourth anniversary of the 2021 incident that killed 26 people including clinic head Kotaro Nishizawa, then 49.

Japan's seasonally adjusted core machinery orders in October rose 7.0pctfrom the previous month, up for the second consecutive month, the Cabinet Office said Wednesday.

Japan's exports to the United States in November increased 8.8pctfrom a year earlier to 1,816.9 billion yen, up for the first time in eight months, preliminary customs-cleared trade data from the Finance Ministry showed Wednesday.

Cambodian authorities have taken into custody 16 Japanese nationals for their suspected involvement in so-called special fraud, such as telephone scams, the Japanese Embassy in the Southeast Asian country said Wednesday.

Financial assets held by Japanese households as of the end of September grew 4.9pctfrom a year earlier to 2,286 trillion yen, hitting a record high for two quarters in a row, Bank of Japan data showed Wednesday.