Japan wants young people to drink more for tax reasons.
The BBC reports younger Japanese people drink less alcohol than their parents and this is hitting sales of beverages from beer to sake between 1995 and 2020, average annual consumption of alcoholic drinks dropped from 100 liters to 75 liters per adult.
That meant taxes on alcohol sales raised ¥1.1trn in 2020 or less than 1.7 percent of total tax revenue, says Bloomberg, while 40 years ago, they contributed five percent of revenue.
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So the National Tax Agency has launched a campaign called Sake Vival, inviting people in their 20s and 30s to come up with ideas that will increase demand among young people for alcohol-whether those are promotions, products or even (somehow) proposals involving artificial intelligence.
