Tokyo - Japan's second-largest automaker, Honda Motor Co, said Thursday that it sees no need to revise its earnings projections for the current fiscal year despite worries about a global economic slowdown.

The remarks by Honda President Takeo Fukui came after his counterpart at market leader Toyota Motor Corp said the business outlook for the automotive market was "very severe."

As world stock markets fall as part of the global financial crisis, consumer spending has been affected, Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said.

Tokyo - The Tokyo stock market slipped in early trading Thursday after Wall Street's blue-chip Dow Jones industrials los

Frankfurt - Sony is to offer its e-book reader, a replacement for paper books, in Germany from the spring of next year, the Japan-based media company said Wednesday at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The Sony Reader device went on sale in the United States in 2006 and in Britain last month.

Sony said it would link with a German book wholesaler, Libri, and a retailer, Thalia, to market the device, which downloads books from personal computers.

Tokyo - Japan logged its first trade deficit in more than three years in August as rising commodity prices pushed up imports, the government said Wednesday.

The nation's imports jumped 20.2 per cent in August from the same month a year earlier to 6.96 trillion yen (68.02 billion dollars) while exports were almost unchanged at 6.72 trillion yen, up 0.9 per cent, the Finance Ministry said.

Japan's goods and services trade, measured on an international balance of payment basis, ran a deficit of 327.6 billion yen.

Tokyo - Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa on Tuesday announced a series of government plans to stabilize the financial markets, including the use of public money to help regional banks.

Japan's initiatives also include freezing sales of government-held stocks, extending a safety net for life insurance companies and relaxing buybacks for companies of their own shares.