Corporate Japan is growing in confidence. News that Mitsubishi Heavy is considering a $2bn acquisition of Westinghouse Electric, the US nuclear plant manufacturer, follows several cross-border acquisitions. Sumida, the coil maker, even launched a rare hostile bid in Switzerland. The $5bn worth of deals this year, not far off levels for the whole of 2004, is small but significant for a country that has been painfully self-absorbed since the early 1990s.

Today, however, Japan Inc is awash with cash again, boasting an aggregate $160bn of free cash flow this year. Meanwhile, investment options are limited. Smaller companies are actually reducing capital expenditure, deterred in part by the shrinking domestic population. Although now about 25 per cent, dividend payout ratios remain mean in global terms. Yet keeping cash on balance sheets is hugely inefficient in an era of zero interest rates.