Japan seeks to stop hollowing out of its rural economies

Tokyo

JAPAN Prime Minister Shinzo Abe entered the new year resolved to get the world's third-largest economy moving forward again through bolder structural reforms, but Jan 1 brought him a grim reminder of the internal decay eating away at the country's social and economic fabric.

Official data released indicated that the country's population decline was at its most serious last year - the number of births fell by 29,000 from the previous year to a new low of one million, and the number of deaths hit a post-war high of 1.27 million.

Alongside this demographic time bomb, which is causing the population to age and shrink faster than in almost any other country…