The billions of dollars flowing from Japan to the likes of Apple, Amazon and Microsoft might eventually be more of a positive than a negative.
¡°The digital deficit has grown this much mainly because more companies and individuals are using digital services, meaning digitalization has accelerated, which we believe is a huge plus,¡± says Kengo Wataya, a researcher at Mitsubishi Research Institute.
Last year, Japan recorded a ?5.5 trillion ($34 billion) deficit in digital services as huge sums were spent on cloud services, operating systems, email services, social media and internet-based transactions with firms based overseas.
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