Make Tokyo cheap
VENTURING into Fortnum & Mason, I find myself charged by a phalanx of Japanese shoppers. They are worthy of their martial ancestors, and the weakness of their currency does not seem to be putting them off. I would be astonished to learn that British shoppers are • roaming the Ginza, using their strong pounds to snap up bargains. When I was last in Japan, my host recommended me to think of my 10,000- yen notes as whisky tokens. 'Don't try to work out what they're worth,' he said. 'It will only upset you.' By Western standards Tokyo is still amazingly expensive, and by Japanese standards London is still cheap. Last week the Americans came riding ostentatiously to the yen's rescue, but that looked to me like a propitiatory gesture, ahead of the President's visit to Beijing. The Chinese have been voicing their fear that the yen's fall will set their own curren- cy sliding. I notice that Nikko, the Tokyo- based broker, thinks the yen still has fur- ther to fall. Struggling to kick-start their sluggish economy, the Japanese need to bring the eager shoppers back from Fort- num's to the Ginza. A cheaper yen strikes me as the obvious way to do that.
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