The billions of dollars flowing from Japan to companies like Apple, Amazon and Microsoft ultimately turn out to be more positive than negative.
“The digital shortage has become so great mainly because more companies and individuals are using digital services. This means that digitalization has accelerated, which we see as a big plus,” said Kengo Wataya, a researcher at the Mitsubishi Research Institute.
Last year, Japan had a ¥5.5 trillion ($34 billion) deficit on digital services as huge sums were spent on cloud services, operating systems, email services, social media and internet-based transactions.
