Word: importance
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...Changing Complexion This influx of Chinese white-collar workers is forcing Japan to rethink its very national identity. Traditionally, the island nation has been inward-looking and xenophobic. Today, however, grappling with a labor shortage caused by decades of declining birth rates, Japan knows it must import workers if it is to remain the world's second-largest economy. And so the deluge of highly educated Chinese is challenging Japan to re-evaluate its attitude toward foreigners - particularly those who hail from what was once dismissed as a communist backwater but today is crucial to Japan's economic prospects...
...Oddly, Bush didn't seem to ask for a delay in the release of the report. He could easily have requested a few weeks for his Administration to chew over the import of the NIE, discuss it with our allies, organize a new diplomatic initiative to negotiate with the Iranians. As it was, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns briefed the U.N. Security Council members who had been considering a new round of sanctions against Iran about the same time that word of the NIE broke in the press. When it did, the Chinese, who had seemed surprisingly ready...
...primarily Communist literature. And Schoenhof’s Foreign Books, at 76 Mt. Auburn St. #A, founded in 1856, has the largest selection of foreign language books in the country, according to their Web site. Daniel Eastman, the store’s general director, said, “We import books from at least 100 different countries, and we probably deal with 4,000 different publishers and suppliers...
...Importers are intoxicated by the rapid growth of what is now a $30 million market--at cost. While the number of Japanese breweries (kura) has dropped to 1,800 (from 2,400) over the past two decades--and is expected to fall to 600 by 2025--imported sake constitutes about 25% of the U.S. sake market by volume. Imports have risen from 10% to 15% a year for the past decade, and import volume in 2007 will be nearly twice what it was in 2002. Over the past five years, the average import cost of a liter has risen...
Three years ago, Henry Sidel, 39, traded the fast track of vodka imports for sake. The former Brooklyn Brewery general manager and marketing director of Millennium Import started Joto Sake, an import firm, with $250,000 in equity and a personal lust for the drink. "More sake is sold in the U.S. than French champagne," he says dryly, sitting in his warehouse office in Manhattan. "People think of sake as a niche category...