With naphtha-made products still in short supply for end users, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government now faces questions about whether she should try to resolve the supply chain bottleneck by applying two laws to punish hoarders.
One of the laws aims to prevent businesses from hoarding and holding back the sale of daily necessities. The other is aimed at setting a fixed price for daily goods so that prices will not rise quickly.
Firms in a broad range of industries at the end of the supply chain remain unable to source needed products made from naphtha due to stockpiling by upstream firms.
