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A government official has assured the world that Japan will not have a problem in 2000.
It must be nice to live in a society where y2k is no problem. The United States government keeps issuing warnings that it cannot complete the repair of all of its systems, let alone private industry's systems.
We are assured that "all 12 city banks and 64 second-tier banks already completed or in the process of taking necessary measures." What these measures are, we are not told. We are also not told that they have taken all necessary measures, beginning with fixing the code. We are surely not told that any bank is compliant.
The story recites two familiar themes: big firms will make it; small and medium firmds may not; the deadline for coding will be met: December 31, 1999.
Meanwhile, "According to a survey conducted in September 1997 by the Japan Information Service Industry Association (JISA), 33 percent of firms with capital below 100 million yen had taken or were in the process of taking measures to deal with the problem." That means that with two years to go, two-thirds of all Japanese firms smaller than $100 million a year had done nothing.
Japan has no oil or enough food to feed its people. A third of the population lives within two hours of Tokyo. It's high tech. It has few programmers, and fewer still who can read manuals in English.
In short, sayonara Japan.
Also, sayonara, world economy.
This is a Reuters story posted on Infobeat (June 5).
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will move safely into the year 2000, despite criticism that it is not making adequate preparations to deal with the millennium bug, the Japanese government official in charge of overseeing the issue vows.
``We won't be seeing a miserable New Year 2000,'' Masanori Yoshida of the Information Processing Promotion Division at the Japanese trade ministry told Reuters in an interview.
``Despite what others say, Japan has the basics under control,'' said Yoshida.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has warned that Japan and other Pacific Rim countries were nine months to a year behind in dealing with a possible millennium glitch. . . .
In response to the worries, Japan last December set up a task force made up of representatives from all related ministries to assess the situation and take necessary measures.
Last month, the task force urged all firms to make information on their Y2K compliance available to the public to boost the credibility of Japanese firms which conduct international operations.
The task force has also released the results of what it says was an up-beat survey of 7,260 companies from 49 major industries on the progress made on Y2K compliance. . . .
Major companies responded that they expected to complete the process by late 1998 or early 1999.
The survey concluded there was no ``fatal'' lagging in progress by big firms.
Among the different industries in the private sector, the financial industry was most advanced, with all 12 city banks and 64 second-tier banks already completed or in the process of taking necessary measures. . . .
But Yoshida was optimistic about major industries being able to meet the 2000 deadline. ``The problem lies more in small and medium-sized companies, whose delay in Y2K compliance won't have an immediate global impact, but will nevertheless affect businesses of major companies,'' Yoshida said. But he said for such firms, Japan had the necessary support measures available such as tax relief measures, as well as public and private loan schemes.
``The key is convincing such small and medium-sized firms to take advantage of these measures,'' Yoshida said.
According to a survey conducted in September 1997 by the Japan Information Service Industry Association (JISA), 33 percent of firms with capital below 100 million yen had taken or were in the process of taking measures to deal with the problem.
Nearly 40 percent do not have a section within the company to deal with information systems, and the largest obstacle such firms face is securing the budget for Y2K compliance, the survey said.
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