The Japanese economy is on a path to stronger growth, but fundamental structural reforms are urgently needed to promote a more robust recovery, address high levels of government debt and reverse a trend toward declining living standards, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Japan.

Data from the Japanese government suggest there are currently over 1 000 shipyards in Japan. Some of these yards are privately owned individual enterprises, while others form part of larger private or public companies that operate multiple yards. Japan’s shipbuilders exist within a wider maritime cluster that provides crucial upstream and downstream products and services.

Japan, one of the founding members of the OECD Development Centre, conveyed its intention to return as a member. Prime Minister Abe and Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida confirmed Japan's commitment to the OECD Secretary General Gurría and Development Centre’s Director Mario Pezzini during their visit to Tokyo earlier this week.

Japan, one of the founding members of the OECD Development Centre, makes a welcome return to the Centre. Japan’s re-entry is one of the milestones during a seminal week of activities at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, including celebrating the 2016 OECD Week, holding its Ministerial Council Meeting and convening a High-Level Meeting of its Development Centre Governing Board.

In December 2014, the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions agreed to send a High Level Mission to Japan due to longstanding serious concerns about Japan’s implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

A high-level Working Group mission will visit Tokyo on 29-30 June 2016 and meet senior Japanese government officials.

The fourth annual edition of Revenue Statistics in Asian Countries covers seven countries, including Kazakhstan for the first time. It shows that the tax-to-GDP ratio in all these countries are lower than the OECD average of 34.3% in 2015, which highlights that scope remains for increasing tax mobilisation, especially in Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and the Philippines to achieve sustainable growth.

Selected findings for Japan from the report "Preventing Ageing Unequally"

壊れた社会的流動性エレベーター？ 社会的流動性を向上させるには 他国と比べて日本は?

A broken social elevator? Key findings for Japan

Cross-border capital flows are an integral component of international finance, but require a balanced framework for removing unnecessary barriers to the movement of capital while providing governments flexibility to cope with instances of economic or financial instability, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said today.

Japan's tax-to-GDP ratio was 30.6% in 2016* (latest available data), below the OECD average (34.2%) by 3.6 percentage points, and above the LAC and Africa (21)* averages (22.8% and 18.2%, respectively).

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Japan increased by 0.7 percentage points from 30.7% in 2016 to 31.4% in 2017 (latest year available). The corresponding figures for the OECD average were a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from 34.4% to 34.2% over the same period.

Government Revenues in Luxembourg increased to 26788.30 EUR Million in 2018 from 24525.60 EUR Million in 2017. Government Revenues in Luxembourg averaged 15166.20 EUR Million from 1995 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 26788.30 EUR Million in 2018 and a record low of 6838.20 EUR Million in 1995. Government Revenues refer to all receipts the government gets, including taxes, custom duties, revenue from state-owned enterprises, capital revenues and foreign aid. Government Revenues are part of government budget balance calculation. This page provides - Luxembourg Government Revenues- actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Exports of Prepared Foodstuffs Beverages & Tobacco in South Africa increased to 3490.92 ZAR Million in March from 2608.19 ZAR Million in February of 2020. Exports of Prepared Foodstuffs Beverages & Tobacco in South Africa averaged 2920.53 ZAR Million from 2014 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 4194.88 ZAR Million in October of 2018 and a record low of 1704.27 ZAR Million in January of 2015. This page includes a chart with historical data for South Africa Exports of Prepared Foodstuffs Beverages & Tobacco.

Imports of Prepared Foodstuffs Beverages & Tobacco in South Africa increased to 2612.43 ZAR Million in March from 2292.20 ZAR Million in February of 2020. Imports of Prepared Foodstuffs Beverages & Tobacco in South Africa averaged 2502.29 ZAR Million from 2014 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 3674.84 ZAR Million in October of 2019 and a record low of 1707.09 ZAR Million in June of 2014. This page includes a chart with historical data for South Africa Imports of Prepared Foodstuffs Beverages & Tobacco.

This report summarises the legal and regulatory framework for transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes in Austria.

Austria has a higher share of immigrants in the total working-age population than many other OECD countries. At the same time, the framework for integration policy is less developed than in a number of other OECD countries. These are among the main findings of this review.

The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes has released peer review reports assessing the tax systems of 13 jurisdictions for information exchange.

Environmental goods and services are now a bigger driver of Austria’s economy and job market than traditionally strong sectors like tourism and construction, thanks to the government’s policy of subsidising green investments, a new OECD report shows.

This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).

Austria should set a timeframe to increase its aid budget in line with a pledge to allocate 0.7% of its gross national income (GNI) to development aid, according to an OECD Review.

Austria stands out for its high levels of economic and social well-being. Preserving these will require reforms to improve competition in the service sector, increase access to risk capital for firms of all sizes, encourage more women and migrants into the workforce and lengthen work lives to reflect the ageing population, according to a new OECD report.

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Austria increased by 0.4 percentage points from 41.8% in 2017 to 42.2% in 2018. The corresponding figure for the OECD average was a slight increase of 0.1 percentage point from 34.2% to 34.3% over the same period.

The OECD/INFE High level Principles on National Strategies for Financial Education provide international guidance to policy makers with a view to developing evidence-based, co-ordinated and tailored approaches to financial education, both in emerging markets and more advanced economies. G20 Leaders recognised the important role of financial education policies when they endorsed these Principles in 2012.

This seminar aimed to advance shared understandings on policies to make the most of cross-border capital flows in support of growth and development and on the value of international co-operation, including the OECD Codes of Liberalisation, in the current context of serious global financial turbulence.

In most OECD countries tax revenues are continuing to rise in relation to GDP from the 2008-09 declines seen at the beginning of the crisis, according to OECD’s annual Revenue Statistics. OECD countries collected about 34.0% of GDP in taxes in 2011, compared with 33.8% in 2010.

This study models the distance-to-default (DTD) of a large sample of banks from 2004 to 2011 and examines the results from the perspective of policy approaches that aim to reduce the riskiness of banks.

This report concludes that actual application of bail-ins, involving bondholders in loss sharing, could effectively reign in perceptions of implicit guarantees for bank debt. However, bail-ins are rare owing to concerns about contagion risks and depositor and investor protection, so implicit guarantees persist.

Co-organised by the G20 Russian Presidency and the OECD, this roundtable focused on policy measures to address constraints in long-term investment. It was organised back-to-back with the 2013 OECD Forum and the OECD-Euromoney Infrastructure Summit.

Faced with the acute poverty of many Russian pensioners, the Russian government is engaged in wide-ranging systemic reforms. This report contributes to the policy discussion by identifying aspects of the system that may need to be reformed and describing the experience of other countries as a point of comparison.

Jointly developed by the IMF, World Bank, EBRD, and the OECD, this report analyses the main elements necessary to deepen domestic bond markets in emerging and developing economies.

This book addresses gender differences in financial literacy and reviews policy responses and initiatives across the world to tackle women’s and girls’ needs, drawing lessons from existing experiences.

This paper investigates whether countries that had controls on inflows in place prior to the crisis were less vulnerable during the global financial crisis. More generally, it examines economic growth effects of such controls over the entire economic cycle, finding that capital restrictions on inflows (particularly debt liabilities) may be useful in good times but may have adverse effects in a crisis.

The 2013 Forum was held on 5-6 December and discussed how governments can improve their investment policy framework to reduce the risk and attract long-term private finance in support of green growth.

This event, co-organised by the OECD and the Korean authorities, explored policies and good practices for supporting long-term savings and investments through financial education and financial consumer protection.

This article presents a brief overview of current financing difficulties for SMEs and policy measures to support SME lending during the crisis, and presents a literature review related to difficulties in SME’s access to finance during the crisis, against a background of a sharp decline in bank profitability and an erosion of bank capital that negatively affected lending.

Organised in Istanbul, this event focused on financial education across Europe and in Turkey, the role(s) of the private and not-for-profit sectors in financial education, financial literacy and innovation for young people and financial education for migrant workers and their families.

Singapore, 4 June 2014: This roundtable focused on how policymakers and investors can facilitate private sector infrastructure financing, as well as issues related to governance for institutional investors and the accounting treatment for long-term investment.

This blog post by Sony Kapoor, Managing Director, Re-Define International Think Tank, gives his view on why the OECD – which uniquely houses financial, development, infrastructure and environmental expertise under one roof – must take charge of promoting long-term investment in developing country infrastructure.

As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approach their expiry date, we must focus our efforts on ensuring a brighter, more inclusive and sustainable future for all. We face a plethora of common issues: growing inequalities; changing consumption patterns and population dynamics; increasing natural resource scarcity; and ongoing illicit financial flows.

This paper analyses the effects of government policies on flows of private finance for investment in renewable energy. It also examines whether direct provision of public finance for a project increases the volume of private finance raised. The analysis covers 87 countries, six renewable energy sectors (wind, solar, biomass, small hydropower, marine and geothermal).

What are the economic effects of implicit bank debt guarantees and who ultimately benefits? This report sheds light on these questions

Singapore, 28 May 2015: This roundtable will focus on key themes related to G20 work, including how policy makers and investors can facilitate private sector infrastructure financing, the development of infrastructure as an asset class, and issues relating to the regulation of long-term investment.

In a historic visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to the OECD in Paris, the People’s Republic of China today decided to enhance longstanding collaboration with the OECD and to join the OECD Development Centre.

In 2009, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo published her book, “Dead Aid”, which shocked much of the international development community by claiming that ‘traditional’ systems of official development assistance (ODA) to Africa were not delivering, and arguing why we must find alternatives. This article looks at where we are at today.

Addis Ababa - Part of the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development, this event explored strategies to leverage Africa’s pension funds and other sources of private financing to develop Africa’s infrastructure. Ways to improve the investment climate in Africa using the recently updated Policy Framework for Investment were also be addressed.

Long-term savings and investments (LTSI) by individuals enhances their financial security while also supporting growth and financial development. Evidence shows that financial knowledge and skills are positively related to LTSI behaviour, and indicates a strong correlation between levels of financial literacy and retirement wealth accumulation.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: This Symposium addressed cutting-edge issues to further integrate financial education and financial consumer protection policies with a view to enhancing financial well-being and to address the challenges and identify solutions in delivering effective financial education.

29 October 2015, Paris - Resilient cities and SMEs are critical to reducing the economic disruption from climate-related disaster events. In the run up to COP21, these remarks by Adrian Blundell-Wignall at the AXA-UNEP-PSI Conference on Climate Resilience address the importance of building resilience to climate change risks at the level of cities and SMEs.