Luxury goods fly off shelves in Japan even as economy struggles

Tokyo

JAPAN's economy is hobbling out of a recession, inflation is a quarter of the central bank's target and wages adjusted for price changes fell last year. And yet sales of luxury goods are growing and the stock market hit a 15-year high.

Sales of high-end imported cars and luxury goods have been rising since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in December 2012, outpacing the increase of total retail sales. Department stores sold 333 billion yen (S$3.81 billion) worth of luxury goods including watches, artworks and jewellery in 2014, up 20 per cent from 2012. Over the same period, total retail sales rose 2.6 per cent. There were 16,198 foreign-brand imported cars worth 10 million yen or more sold in 2014, a 63 per cent jump from 2012, according to the Japan Automobile Importers Association .