OSAKA -- A group of Japanese companies looks to build a luxury Waldorf Astoria hotel as a main attraction in an urban redevelopment project in Osaka, a city short on top-class accommodations.

Mitsubishi Estate and the other eight companies handling the project on the north side of Osaka Station hope that a Waldorf -- one of Hilton's crown jewels -- would draw affluent visitors from Japan and abroad. The new hotel at the earliest may open before the city hosts the World Expo in 2025.

There

TOKYO -- Mazda Motor on Tuesday halted operations at two of its Japan factories, the latest victims of torrential rain now hovering over the southwestern part of the country.

The company's headquarters factory in Hiroshima Prefecture and its Hofu factory in Yamaguchi Prefecture might reopen on Wednesday, depending on weather conditions.

The decision to halt operations was made to safeguard the security of employees and suppliers. The rain is expected to continue.

While the heavy rain has not damaged factory facilities, it has affected construction at the Hofu factory.

HONG KONG -- A Chinese government fund has taken a small stake in a domestic operating unit of ByteDance, creator of the global hit short-video app TikTok, as Beijing tightens its grip over major internet platforms.

WangTouZhongWen (Beijing) Technology, owned by a Cyberspace Administration of China investment vehicle as well as two other state agencies, invested 2 million yuan ($308,770) in April for a 1% stake in Beijing ByteDance Technology, according to public records from the National Enterprise Credit

SINGAPORE -- Southeast Asian nations' coronavirus lockdowns have quickened the revenue growth of the region's most valuable listed tech company, Sea, which has ramped up its ad spending to capture rising e-commerce demand.

The Singapore-based company, whose core businesses include online gaming and digital payments as well as e-commerce, on Tuesday reported revenue of $2.28 billion for the three months through June, up more than 158% from a year earlier.

But the growth came with a

TOKYO -- Keyence, a top maker of automation sensors and machine vision systems, was Japan's top-paying company in the fiscal year ended March, Nikkei has found, as profitable corporations continue to amply reward employees despite a pandemic-induced economic chill.

Keyence's roughly 2,600 employees received on average 17.51 million yen ($160,000) for the year. Nikkei ranked the 355 components of the Nikkei 500 Stock Average

TOKYO -- The Alzheimer's disease drug developed by Tokyo-based Eisai and U.S. partner Biogen is set to be used by more than 300 American medical institutions and is already being administered to some patients, the head of Eisai's neurology business told Nikkei on Tuesday.

Aducanumab, marketed under the brand name Aduhelm, received conditional approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June under a cloud of doubts. The drug targets plaques in the brain formed by amyloid proteins,

HONG KONG -- Embattled state-owned debt buyer China Huarong Asset Management received shareholder approval on Tuesday to exit a unit, restructure another and appoint a new executive director as it confronts its own default deadline.

The moves are intended to shore up Huarong's finances and refocus the company on its core business of buying and managing distressed debt from Chinese banks. The asset manager's shares in Hong Kong have been suspended since it failed to report its 2020 results at the end of March, which also

BEIJING -- An extra month off and $80 monthly stipends and 30-day days of additional leave part of a series of sweetners local governments have unveiled as China kicks off the legislative process to allow married couples to have a third child in a drive to curb a precipitous decline in births.

The push comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping ramps up efforts to encourage families to have more children. A shrinking workforce and increased social spending have stoked concerns that China's economic growth may slow and hamper the country

Stephen Givens is a corporate lawyer based in Tokyo.

How Japan addresses digital policy in the coming years presents a vexingly complex and critical set of problems. National security, economic competitiveness and political values involving free speech and privacy are all vitally at stake.

Who heads Japan's newly established Digital Agency, with responsibility for "basic policies on measures for the formation of a digital society [and] basic policies for establishing and managing the information systems of national, local public organizations and quasi-public sector private businesses" is