TOKYO -- The Imperial Hotel Tokyo, a famed landmark slated to undergo a lengthy $2 billion reconstruction, revealed on Wednesday the new design for the main building, which will resemble a multitiered palace.

Paris-based architect Tsuyoshi Tane chose a beige color scheme for the stone exterior. The midrise hotel will look like a staircase, with the "first step" entrance facing Hibiya Park.

"I aimed for an architecture with the luxurious feel of a palace that retained the appearance of a metropolitan grand hotel," Tane

TOKYO -- Japanese companies will be urged to disclose information regarding their major shareholders, starting next January, Nikkei has learned, as regulators step up their efforts to combat money laundering.

Japan's Financial Services Agency, the Ministry of Justice and financial institutions will push for around 3.5 million companies, both public and private, to submit relevant information to the ministry's legal affairs bureau. The authorities will check to see whether suspicious businesses or individuals involved in money laundering are listed as major shareholders.

The move

TOKYO -- Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings expects to swing to a consolidated net loss of around 16 billion yen ($140 million) for the fiscal year ending next March, compared to a net profit of 180.8 billion yen for the previous year, the company said on Wednesday.

TEPCO has revised down its previous forecast of a profit of 67 billion yen, marking the first time in nine years the company will post an annual loss.

Rising fuel prices have

Stephen Givens is a corporate lawyer based in Tokyo.

Japanese asset managers, across a range of bench marks, substantially underperform their counterparts in the U.S. They also happen to be compensated less generously by several orders of magnitude. Is there a causal connection here?

An article on Japan's new government-sponsored university fund, " Japan's $90bn university fund struggles to draw talent despite size ," published in the Financial Times on Oct. 11, implied that there is.

The

TOKYO/HONG KONG -- Chinese ride-hailing company T3 Chuxing says it has raised more than $1 billion from a group of investors led by state-backed conglomerate Citic Group, as its bigger rival -- SoftBank Group-backed Didi Global -- continues to feel the sting of a regulatory crackdown.

Founded in 2019, Nanjing-based T3 announced the 7.7 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) investment late on Tuesday. The company says it operates in 41

TOKYO -- Japan's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are facing financing difficulties, as the burden of repayment ratio -- calculated by dividing debt balance by annual profit from core businesses -- soared at the end of March to levels not seen since immediately after the 2008 global financial crisis.

"I don't think I can survive the winter if COVID spreads again and forces me to cut back my business," said the operator of a grilled chicken restaurant near Kanda Station in

India is taking an increasingly protectionist turn, with frequent and broad tariff hikes and discriminatory regulations against foreign-owned companies. Without a change in course, Asia's third-largest economy cannot modernize industry and remove structural obstacles to growth, such as supply limitations and low productivity.

India increased import tariffs on more than 50 items for a third straight year in its 2021-22 budget. The list includes a variety of automobile and electronic parts.

In its annual report on foreign trade barriers,

KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob's government will propose its first budget on Friday, attempting to chart a path for economic recovery in 2022 as the country begins to treat COVID-19 as an endemic disease.

Unlike last year, when predecessor Muhyiddin Yassin's budget proposal was overshadowed by speculation on whether his premiership would survive the vote, Ismail Sabri brings his plan to parliament amid a historic cease-fire with the opposition -- expected to help secure the bill's

COLOMBO -- Sri Lanka's COVID-stricken economy is being likened to a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment as foreign reserves plummet, the cost of living rises and the central bank carries on printing money.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka printed over 130 billion rupees ($640 million) in October alone, but that is just the iceberg's tip. From December 2019 to August 2021, Sri Lanka's money supply increased by