AN EXPENSIVE FISH

I wouldn't pay 32.49 million yen (almost US$400,000) for a fish, even if I had the money (which I don't). But that is what a couple of restaurant owners in Japan and Hong Kong have just done.

The fish was admittedly rather large, some 342kg in weight. It was also a rare blue fin tuna, which is like the Rolls Royce of sushi. Even so. After allowing for head and bones, we are probably talking about an input price of at least US$1,500 per kg of flesh, and a restaurant sales price of a multiple of that. That makes for some very expensive nibblies.

I know that the Japanese love their sushi. Prices at the first auction of the year at the Tokyo fish market also tend to break records. But if consumers are prepared to pay so much for so little, is it so surprising that the Japanese economy has problems?

Walter Blotscher