So while Japan's right hand helps to develop I.T. talent in Asia's poorer countries, its left hand will be busily depleting the ranks of these same professionals who are badly needed at home. In January, he formed an Internet-based consultancy firm, called International Management Academy, in the southern city of Iizuka, in Fukuoka prefecture. His choice of this remote city is significant. Wada says he was moved by a group of young entrepreneurs he met there who dreamed of turning the old coal-mining town into an Asian Silicon Valley with the help of nearby engineering schools. Instead, DoCoMo opted to take minority stakes in several foreign cellular operators.
Consumers can expect to gain dual benefits in lower charges and greater diversity of services.
According to Branson, Virgin is currently talking with a number of carriers in Japan in regard to provisioning of transmission lines. Branson expects that a deal will be signed in about three months, and business operations could be underway as early as the beginning of 2002. This implies that the trend for CPI will continue downward. All in all, current expectations are that the ZIRP will remain in place for two years. Unfortunately, as the following Taylor Rule analysis shows, the ZIRP is unlikely to have any effect on prices or the economy regardless of how long it is in place.