Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has firmed up his plan to postpone an increase in the consumption tax from the current 8 percent to 10 percent, which was originally scheduled for October 2015. The prime minister made the decision because he determined that if the sales tax was increased as originally planned, his economic policy mix, dubbed "Abenomics," which is aimed at pulling the economy out from deflation, could become fundamentally ineffective. This is because economic recovery has been slowing down in the wake of the previous consumption tax hike to 8 percent in April. A dominant view is that Abe will delay the ... (full story)