The Sake Viva! campaign, which is being run by the National Tax Agency (NTA), asks 20- to 39-year-olds to come up with proposals to help revitalise the popularity of alcoholic drinks, which have fallen out of favour because of lifestyle changes during the coronavirus pandemic and among young people.
Taxes on alcohol accounted for 1.7% of Japan’s tax revenue in 2020, down from 3% in 2011 and 5% in 1980.
There was a particularly steep decline in beer consumption, with sales volume down 20% to less than 1.8bn litres.
Young Japanese don’t want to drink, don’t want to smoke, don’t want to play pachinko… I’m sure a lot of them do, but most of them don’t. The older class just can’t understand it.
And young Japanese absolutely don’t want get married, let alone have children.