Which Seventeen Ice Cream flavor do you like?

Which Seventeen Ice Cream flavor do you like?

We interviewed 20 foreigners on the street! Which Seventeen Ice Cream flavor do you like?
Seventeen Ice Cream is a brand well-known among people who live in Japan, But accually many foreigners in japan loves to eat Seventeen Ice . So, what flavors do non-Japanese people enjoy? We conducted sudden street interviews of foreign tourists visiting Osaka’s Dotonbori area about Seventeen Ice Cream.

Seventeen Ice Cream is a brand well-known among people who live in Japan, But accually many foreigners in japan loves to eat Seventeen Ice . So, what flavors do non-Japanese people enjoy? We conducted sudden street interviews of foreign tourists visiting Osaka’s Dotonbori area about Seventeen Ice Cream.

What do foreign tourists trying Seventeen Ice Cream for the first time think?

First, we came across this Malaysian couple on their very first trip to Japan. Everything they saw was new to them. Of course, seeing an ice cream vending machine was also new, so they were very excited at its existence! They chose their favorite matcha flavor. “Matcha-flavored food in Japan has a very rich, delicious taste. I’ve grown to love it even more than before,” they said.

Next, we interviewed an Australian couple. The woman, Bonnie, bought a chocolate mint ice cream. Chocolate mint is very popular in Australia. She seemed very satisfied with Seventeen Ice Cream. “Cool! I want to try it again!” she said.

Andy from England decided to try the strawberry flavor even though he usually doesn’t like it. He wanted to try to overcome his dislike by trying Japanese ice cream, but he took one bite and it was obvious that he didn’t like it due to his expression.

■ Everyone’s favorite flavor, vanilla, squarely sits in first place! Matcha is also highly ranked!

We asked 20 foreigners their favorite flavors:
1 – Vanilla, 6 votes
2 – Chocolate, 5 votes
3 – Matcha, 4 votes
Most people who tried Seventeen Ice Cream for the first time had responses such as “good!” and “tasty!” It’s well-known that vanilla and chocolate flavors are popular with people worldwide, but honestly we were surprised that matcha came in at third.

The surprise at an ice cream vending machine

Out of 20 people, only 6 knew about ice cream vending machines. Out of those six, only 2 people knew that Seventeen Ice Cream utilizes them. Not only are there few countries that have vending machines everywhere like in Japan, but many people from around the world couldn’t hide their surprise at an ice cream vending machine. We heard opinions such as “it’s really convenient” and “the balance between the price and quality is really great,” raising their confidence in Japanese quality.

Original source of article: https://www.glico.com/global/feature/seventeenice01

In Japan, the Government Gets Paid to Borrow Money

By 

KOSAKU NARIOKA

TOKYO—The Japanese government is now getting paid to borrow money, after selling benchmark bonds with a negative yield for the first time Tuesday.

The upside-down auction followed three years of aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan, which has driven interest rates lower in a bid to fuel lending. First the BOJ undertook massive purchases of JGBs and other assets, and in late January introduced negative interest rates on some bank reserves for the first time.

The move into negative rates pushed the yield on existing 10-year JGBs into negative territory, but 10-year JGBs had never been sold with a negative yield at auction, in which the bond buyer agreed at the outset to pay for the privilege of lending money.

That changed Tuesday when the Ministry of Finance sold 10-year bonds with an interest rate of 0.1% at the average price of ¥101.25, producing a yield of minus 0.024% if held to maturity.

ENLARGE

Analysts had expressed concern about demand ahead of the auction, and suggested that many buyers planned to sell their JGBs to the central bank for a profit in the near term. Such trades would be made with the expectation that yields will continue falling as the BOJ pushes ahead with more asset purchases and rate cuts.

Shuichi Ohsaki, chief Japan rates strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said the market could become crowded with such speculative trading, resulting in higher volatility.

Some economists said the falling rates offer the Japanese government an opportunity to expand fiscal stimulus to revive the sputtering economy. Public debt in Japan is more than two times the size of the economy, and the government is now on a deficit-cutting path. But some said the economy should come first.

“The government should issue the necessary bonds, as we’re at zero interest rates,” Mr. Takenaka said in an interview Friday. “Fiscal health can only be achieved through economic health.”Heizo Takenaka, a former economy minister who advises Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said the government should prepare a stimulus package of about $50 billion later this year.

Many policy makers and economist argued that its debt level isn’t a true reflection of its financial footing because about 90% of its debt is held by domestic investors.

In late January, the BOJ took the extraordinary step of imposing a negative interest rate of 0.1% on a portion of commercial banks’ yen deposits at the central bank, joining several European central banks in resorting to the experimental policy tool to combat weak growth and low inflation. The BOJ measure became effective on Feb. 16.

On Feb. 9, Japan’s benchmark 10-year government-bond yield fell into negative territory for the first time.

As of Tuesday, investors were receiving a negative 0.060% yield on the 10-year JGB. That effectively means an investor who lends the government 10,000 yen for 10 years has to pay 6 yen a year to earn the right to do so. In dollar terms, the investor is giving up about 6 cents a year on an $89 loan to the government.

Superlow yields on government bonds are increasingly common as governments enact aggressive monetary easing. The 10-year U.S. government debt yields 1.71%, while 10-year German debt yields 0.11% and 10-year U.K. bonds yield 1.34%.

—Takashi Nakamichi and Eleanor Warnock contributed to this article.

From: The Wall Street Journal

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