Kishida sales pitch for corporate Japan faces toughest test at home

LEO LEWIS

AT A speech in the City of London last week, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida hit his audience with a consummate display of “investo-diplomacy”, making a pitch for investors to reconsider his country’s lowly status in global equity portfolios.

In the whirl of self and national promotion, you could almost forget that both Tokyo shares and yen have been falling steadily since he came to power.