Nowadays, in the face of offshore production ‘Made in Japan’ is commonly associated with Japanese consumers (and many Westerners as well) with high-quality merchandise. Aside from the marketing advantage, however, in many cases domestic production in Japan still makes good business sense for technology products, Asahi Shimbun reports. This has been the experience of Hewlett Packard, largely due to failure rate: computers often develop problems when put through the rigors of shipping long distances, and HP has been able to cut the failure rate in half by switching to domestic production for the Japanese market. Greater ease of parts inventory management is also cited as an advantage.

Hitachi, Toshiba, NEC, Matsushita, and Resesas Technology to set up a ¥200 billion (US $1.68 billion), reports Reuters.

Sony and NEC set up a joint venture joining their optical disc drive operations, to start operating in April of next year producing DVD and CD drives. This is a strange move, for a couple of reasons: first, the industry will begin moving toward next-generation disc drives around that time, and second, Sony and NEC have taken opposite sides of the next-gen format wars, not just on the sidelines, but as lead developers of the formats: Sony having created the Blu-ray technology while NEC was co-developer of HD DVD. Mainichi has the story.

Sanyo is expected to forecast a net loss of ¥230 billion (US $1.93 billion) for this year, an increase from ¥140 billion in September, which was again an increase from ¥92 billion in April. Executive Director Satoshi Iue, the son of the company’s founder, is expected to resign to take responsibility for the company’s losses. The full story is available from Reuters and The Japan Times.

Here’s another sign all will not be well for US beef producers in Japan, even after the import ban is lifted: The Sukiya chain of restaurants has said they will not use American beef as long as safety concerns remain. President Kentaro Ogawa, of Zensho Co, the operator of the restaurant chain, was concerned about safety after visiting American meat processing plants firsthand. Kyodo News has the story.

Mainichi reports that Yuke’s, maker of pro wrestling video games, will actually take control of New Japan Pro Wrestling, the largest pro wrestling organization in Japan, by buying 51.5% of the shares in NJPW.

Japan and Vietnam have agreed to look at the ups and downs of a biletaral free trade agreement. Story at Kyodo News.

Daily Yomiuri has a commentary on the recent problems that Japan Airlines and Meiji Yasuda have been facing in the wake of mismanagement and scandal. Good reading with insights extending beyond the particular circumstances of these two companies to anyone in management.

Reuters reports that Vodafone’s revenue in Japan fell 5% from April-September despite a slight 0.4% increase in sales.

Tokyo’s electronics mecca, the Akihabara district, will be promoted as a global tourist destination by a partnership between communications firm NTT and travel agency JTB, along with a nonprofit organization, according to Kyodo News. Part of the deal includes the planned usage of smart cards to ease the handling of duty-free purchases for foreigners.