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TOKYO — Prayer rooms, hijabs made from local silk and even halal-certified whale meat are appearing in Japan as tourism bosses wake up to the demand from Muslim travellers.

For a largely homogeneous country with only around 100,000 practising Muslims, that means groping its way through unfamiliar customs as it looks to tap a growing market to help it double the number of overseas visitors by 2020.

"Muslim travellers still do not feel comfortable here," Datuk Ibrahim Haji Ahmad Badawi, head of Malaysian food company Brahim's told AFP at a recent seminar on halal tourism in Tokyo. "The government seems to have understood this."

Last year, seminars like this one were held in 20 different regions in Japan, where hoteliers and restaurateurs were invited to learn how to cater to Muslims.

The Osaka Chamber of Commerce handed out 5,000 leaflets as a guide to what can and cannot be eaten — the idea of forbidding consumption of things like alcohol or pork is anathema to omnivorous and foodie Japan.

With the Islamic world currently observing the holy month of Ramadan, tourism to Japan is being heavily promoted in mainly-Muslim Southeast Asia, where visa requirements were relaxed in 2013 for Malaysia and Thailand. 

Indonesia — the largest Muslim-majority country in the world — is slated to follow shortly.

According to the Japanese Tourist Office, the number of Indonesians visiting the archipelago in 2013 was up 37 per cent on the previous year, while 21 per cent more Malaysians came.

Chinese tourist numbers have recovered from their plunge following the 2012 eruption of the spat between Beijing and Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea.

But broadening the appeal of Japan as a destination is key if the industry is to meet the 20 million visitors target set for 2020 when the Olympic Games come to Tokyo.

Catering for the world 

The influx of athletes and spectators from all over the world that the sporting jamboree will bring is also playing into the drive to make the country more Muslim friendly.

"Can you imagine the number of Muslim athletes who will then come to Tokyo? We'll have to feed them," said Badawi.

Brahim as a company has already signed a deal with All Nippon Airways (ANA), one of Japan's biggest carriers, to supply inflight halal meals, Badawi said. A number of large hotels has also approached him looking for advice on how they can cater for Muslim guests.

For Badawi, despite Japan's slow start, the direction of travel is clear: Muslims looking for holiday destinations will come, and in bigger numbers, giving Tokyo an ever-larger slice of a $600 billion global pie.

Slowly, various regions across Japan are catching on. Major airports have dedicated prayer rooms, and tourists looking for the perfect present can pick up hijabs made from Japanese silk as they pass through Kansai International Airport, near Osaka, a recent television report showed.

Longer term visitors are also being catered for, with 19 universities offering halal menus in their cafeterias in a bid to boost the number of Muslim students.

Customers looking for an authentic — but halal — Japanese dish already have a choice in Tokyo, including a yakiniku barbecue restaurant run by Roger Bernard Diaz, a Sri Lankan Catholic who converted his business, but not his religion.

He has no qualms about making the change to offering a range of halal meats and says it has helped him garner reservations from customers from southeast Asia, and even the Gulf.

But sourcing produce can be difficult. "It's hard to find all the ingredients," he admits while pulling a Brazilian-raised halal chicken from a dedicated freezer.

Whale meat 

Muslims who want to sample whale meat are also catered for after Japan's whaling mothership, which slaughters the animals on their controversial hunt, was certified halal-compliant last year.

The Japan Halal Association, which was founded in 2010, is one of only two bodies that can grant this status in the country.

Its chairwoman Hind Hitomi Remon told AFP that business is brisk.

"We are an associate member of the World Halal Council," she said. "Since 2012, we have issued certificates to 40 companies, and that number is set to rise a lot this year," a fact she says is directly attributable to Tokyo being awarded the Olympic Games for 2020.

And even if the tourists don't want to eat in Japan, producers are readying to send produce to them, with exports such as halal-certified soy sauce and even rice, grown in northern Akita prefecture.

But until the numbers swell a little bit more, businesses catering to Muslims still have to keep an eye on what their other customers want.

Yakiniku restaurant owner Diaz says around half of his customers now are Muslims yet he still has to cater for his other patrons.

"It's hard to do business here without selling alcohol," he said.

AMMAN — The inflation rate, which measures the rate of change in the prices of goods and services, recorded a 3.2 per cent rise during the first half of this year, according to the Department of Statistics (DoS) report on inflation. In its report, the DoS attributed the rise resulted from an increase in the prices of rents, tobacco, cigarettes, clothes, footwear, education and transport. This was coupled with a decrease in the prices of hygienic products, meat, poultry products, fat and oils as well as cultural and entertainment charges, according to the DoS report. 

DUBAI — Yemen’s president unveiled a clampdown on public sector spending on Thursday, including a feasibility review of state-owned companies and a ban on all but economy class travel for ministers in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.

Yemen has struggled to pay public sector salaries and finance food and energy imports, which has led to power cuts and fuel shortages as its fight against Al Qaeda militants and other rebel groups lays waste to state finances.

“Joint private and public ventures and other economic entities owned by the state will be reviewed for economic feasibility,” a government statement said late on Wednesday, describing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s package as urgent.

It did not say how much it expected to save, how it would review state firms or when results might be seen.

“It is difficult to put a number on it but we expect to save billions of Yemeni riyals,” Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, told Reuters.

Among the measures, recruitment has been frozen for all state institutions, procurement of cars has been halted, and international travel for senior officials will be restricted.

“Government officials, including ministers, are to be limited to a maximum of four overseas trips a year,” the statement said. “State officials are no longer permitted to travel first or business class.”

Hadi has been trying to stabilise the country for over two years, after political and economic turmoil forced his predecessor to step down. But the state’s push against Islamic militants and rebels has sparked attacks on oil pipelines that are crucial to obtaining up to 70 per cent of state revenues.

Yemen earned just $671 million from exporting crude oil in January-May, nearly 40 per cent less than in the same period last year, and the central bank’s foreign asset reserves have shrunk to $4.6 billion, the lowest level since end-2011.

The Sanaa government will create a military unit from its special forces to help combat tax and customs evasion in a country that is awash with weapons, the statement said.

At the same time, the finance ministry is to review the tax collection process and resolve tax debts.

Sanaa did not announce any measures directly aimed at reducing widespread corruption — a major drain on state funds.

Energy sector

The second-poorest Arab nation is hoping to secure a long-discussed loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that could help unlock more donor funds, held back by fears of corruption and a lack of progress in economic reforms.

Yemen’s finance minister told Reuters in May that the country was seeking “substantially more” than the $560 million which the IMF proposed, and that the fund’s board was expected to finalise the deal in July.

The IMF has pressed Yemen to cut the energy subsidies which cost it $3.07 billion last year, equivalent to 30 per cent of state revenue and 21 per cent of expenditure.

But reducing subsidies is hard in a country where a third of the population of 25 million lives on less than $2 a day, and this week’s austerity package did not address subsidies.

“The authorities recognise the need for subsidy reform, but are not ready to implement stronger measures at this stage, even gradually,” the IMF said in a report on such reform in the region published on Thursday.

“Price adjustment is currently not included in the government’s reform plan,” it added.

Instead, the government said it would review the cost of drilling and extracting crude oil to bring it down to global averages, while the ministries of defence and interior would work to resolve security problems at production sites.

The president also banned the state-owned Public Electricity Corp., which operates most of Yemen’s power generating capacity and the national grid, from building new diesel power plants, leasing them or financing expansion of existing ones.

“The government must work on expanding gas and coal powered plants to replace diesel plants. Plans to install and operate Mareb’s Second Gas Powered Station by the end of January 2015 will be expedited,” the statement said, referring to a power project in Mareb province that was halted in 2010. 

AMMAN – Amman Chamber of Commerce (ACC) President Issa Murad on Wednesday called on the government and lawmakers not to increase taxes on the commercial sector. 

In a statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times, Murad said the new tax legislation, currently at the Lower House for discussion, stipulates raising tax on the sector from 14 per cent to 20 per cent, a 6 per cent increase he described as very high and would hurt economic growth.  

Such a tax rate would also encourage more tax evasion in the country, he remarked. 

Murad urged policy makers and legislators to equalise the tax rate with that planned on the industrial sector, which he said is 14 per cent on the first JD100,000 in profit. 

Profits exceeding this level would be subject to a 20 per cent tax rate, Murad added in the statement. 

According to the ACC president, sales tax collected from the commercial sector reached JD912 million last year, representing 36 per cent of the overall sales tax revenues. 

Merchants also paid JD325 million in taxes and customs fees last year, Murad said, adding that the sector plays an important role in the economic growth of the Kingdom. 

Foreign trade reached over JD21billion last year. 

According to the statement, the ACC current membership counts around 44,000 commercial entities whose capital stands at about JD33.4 billion.    

AMMAN — Global publishing, research and consultancy firm Oxford Business Group (OBG) announced Wednesday in a press statement that Jordan’s plans to reinvigorate its economy through new legislation governing the country’s investment environment will be mapped out in its forthcoming report. “The Report: Jordan 2014” will put the Kingdom’s draft investment law under the microscope, looking at how it could help to create a more investor friendly environment and boost private sector activity,” the statement said. “The publication will include specific analysis of Jordan’s bid to streamline the investment process and strengthen institutional support for the business community.” It added that the Investment Commission has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on research with OBG once again for the forthcoming report on the Kingdom. Under the MoU, OBG will have access to the commission’s expertise and research resources which will be used to compile “The Report: Jordan 2014”. OBG’s Country Director Ece Temel said the group’s reports on Jordan, particularly its coverage of the Kingdom’s infrastructure projects and efforts to encourage industrial growth in key areas, such as Aqaba, had benefited from the Investment Commission’s input.

NEW DELHI — India unveiled plans Tuesday to open up its cash-hungry railways to foreign investment and introduce the first bullet train in a budget closely watched for clues about the new government's economic priorities.

The rail budget is seen by economists as setting the stage for the general budget — due Thursday — in which the right-wing government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to lay out keenly awaited reforms to repair public finances.

But lack of specific details about how India could attract investors to fund improvements to the crumbling railways built by the nation's former British colonial rulers pushed shares down nearly 2 per cent — their biggest single-day fall in months.

The dilapidated railways need an "immediate course correction" after decades of mismanagement, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda told parliament as he outlined plans to upgrade the network which carries 23 million people daily, equivalent to moving Australia's population.

Gowda said India for the first time would seek foreign direct investment  in the railways, which cost the government some 300 billion rupees ($5 billion) annually in subsidies, as well as renew a push for public-private partnerships (PPP) in all areas except passenger operations.

Gowda announced plans to move ahead with a network of high-speed trains running on upgraded existing rails as the railways struggle to win back freight traffic lost to roads, coastal shipping and planes. 

He also proposed India's first bullet train to run between the nation's financial capital Mumbai and commercial hub Ahmedabad in Modi's home state of Gujarat that will require completely new infrastructure.

After strong rises in recent sessions, India's benchmark stock exchange index slumped 1.98 per cent to 25,582.11 points as some analysts said Gowda's plans were long on ambition but short on financing details.

"The railway budget was such a damp squib. The market is now trying to temper its expectations about the main show Thursday," said Alok Churiwala, head of Churiwala Securities, a brokerage.

"It's okay to talk about bullet trains and so on, but where are concrete proposals for funding these things? It's a reality check [about the national budget]," Churiwala added.

Manish Agarwal, infrastructure analyst at global consultancy PwC, highlighted that PPPs were not a magic bullet to funding shortages for a government struggling to overcome a high fiscal deficit.

"Given limited success on [PPP] station-modernisation projects so far, the implementation roll-out remains to be seen," he said. 

The government is betting public-private partnerships in the 2014-15 financial year will raise some 60 billion rupees. But that's a drop in the bucket compared to the up to $500 billion analysts estimate must be invested over the next decade to overhaul the network.

Government's vision

Gowda also announced a 40 per cent hike in spending for cleaning trains and plans for better toilets whose state often horrify travellers. 

He said the railway wanted to upgrade some stations to look like India's shiny new airports.

Modi, who made bullet trains an election pledge while campaigning, said the railway budget showed "where we want to take the railways and through that where we want to take India".

Shoddy ports, roads and train infrastructure have held back growth of Asia's third-largest economy, analysts say. 

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) scored a landslide poll win in May on a pledge to fire up the economy growing at just under 5 per cent, half the rate of a few years ago.

To help fund new wagons, modernise tracks, revamp lines and improve safety, especially at unmanned level crossings that claim thousands of lives a year, the government last month pushed through a double-digit fare hike, the biggest in years.

Indian fares are still among the world's cheapest but the steep rise was a break from the past in which successive governments have shied away from hiking tariffs for fear of alienating voters.

Gowda said the fare increase was "bitter medicine" that would taste "like nectar in the end" when investments bore fruit.

AMMAN — Singaporean Ramatex Group which manufactures NIKE sports equipment has chosen the Kingdom to establish its first project in the Middle East with an investment valued at $20 million. Jordan Investment Commission Acting Chief Khaled Abu Rabei on Tuesday said the investment will be divided into several phases in Muwaqar Industrial City and Karak Industrial City. Abu Rabei added that the project will provide job opportunities to residents of south Amman and Karak governorate. Abu Rabei briefed a delegation representing the group on the investment opportunities available in Jordan and the facilities presented to investors.

TRIPOLI — Libya's oil sector took another big step back to normality with the restarting of an oil field that could double its current meagre crude output, a week after blockades ended at major ports.

The 340,000 barrels per day (bpd) El Sharara oil field has resumed operations after protesters ended a four month strike, state-run National Oil Corp. (NOC) said on Tuesday,

The field is in Libya's remote southwest and its connecting pipelines have been blocked several times since the autumn by protesters making financial and political demands, part of nationwide blockades of fields and oil ports.

Last week, eastern rebels handed over to the government the Ras Lanuf and Es Sider oil ports, ending an almost year-long occupation. Both terminals had accounted for 500,000 bpd.

Experts say, however, it will take time to restart production as fields and pipelines will require maintenance after standing idle so long.

Still, the restart of El Sharara and the two eastern ports give hope to the weak central government to restore vital oil production and revenue to help fight a worsening budget crisis.

Output was 327,000 bpd on Tuesday, NOC indicated, a fraction of the 1.4 million barrels a day the country used to pump last summer when the protests started.

"El Sharara will return to production after the pipelines were opened," said NOC spokesman Mohammed El Harari, adding that pumping had started at 1400 local time.

In May, NOC's production head Anwar Aghil said the field might take months to reach full output as at least 20 pumps inside wells need to be replaced. Operator Akakus, run by NOC and Spain's Repsol, might need up to six month to fix the pumps.

On Sunday, NOC lifted force majeure from the Ras Lanuf and Es Sider ports after rebels agreed to end a blockade. The waiver of contractual obligations was imposed last summer.

Disputes over Libya's oil resources have been among the many triggers for conflict between rival brigades of former rebels and allied political factions since civil war ended four decades of Muammar Qadhafi one-man rule in 2011.

The government and parliament in Tripoli are too weak to control heavily-armed militias which helped topple Qadhafi but now defy state authority and carve out small fiefdoms in the vast desert country.

Eastern port rebel leader Ibrahim Jathran had agreed in April to reopen two smaller eastern ports, Zueitina and Hariga, and then gradually free up Es Sider and Ras Lanuf.

After that deal, shipments from Zueitina were delayed because of damage from the blockade, while Hariga has seen only a few tanker loadings, hampered by a separate protest temporarily closing the port again.

AMMAN — Amman Chamber of Commerce President Issa Murad and India’s Ambassador to Jordan Anil Trigunayat on Monday discussed ways to develop commercial and investment relations between Jordanian and Indian businessmen. During a meeting, Murad highlighted the Jordanian desire to boost relations with the Indian commercial sector and urged more Indian businessmen to visit the Kingdom to get acquainted with the country’s investment environment, noting that there is a plan to arrange for a visit by a commercial delegation to India next year. Trigunayat called on the commercial sector to participate in India International Trade Fair (IITF 2014) which will be held in New Delhi in November. The embassy will arrange meetings for Jordanian businessmen with their Indian counterparts, on the sidelines of the exhibition, Trigunayat said, noting that such meetings will provide opportunity to establish commercial partnerships.

AMMAN — Industry, Trade and Supply Minister Hatem Halawani on Monday discussed with a Mexican delegation, headed by Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mexico Carlos Alberto de Icaza González, means to enhance Jordanian-Mexican relations. During the meeting, Halawani said that His Majesty King Abdullah’s visit to Mexico has laid down the basis of improved economic relations between the two countries, saying that Jordan can serve as a Middle East gate for Mexico. Halawani also stressed the importance of bilateral agreements the two sides have signed during the Royal visit to Mexico, adding that work is under way to draft a Jordanian-Mexican free trade agreement. Halawani also said Jordan’s imports from Mexico reached $41 million compared with around $17 million of exports, describing the figures as modest and need to be increased.