Shares in Japanese chipmaker Kioxia rallied more than seven percent on their debut in Tokyo on Wednesday after an initial public offering that valued the firm at more than $5 billion.Formerly the semiconductor unit of Japanese engineering giant Toshiba, the firm is the world’s third-largest producer of NAND flash memory chips.It was acquired by US investment firm Bain Capital in 2018.Memory chips are used in everyday devices such as smartphones and storage drives, as well as in industrial and medical equipment, but their prices are notoriously volatile.Global demand for the chips has been driven by the growth of generative artificial intelligence technology, such as that used in OpenAI’s popular chatbot ChatGPT.Kioxia had been expected to go public in October, emboldened by soaring demand for AI, but a rout in tech shares forced the company to delay until this month.The firm set its listing price at 1,455 yen per share, valuing the firm at 784 billion yen ($5.2 billion) and raising about 120 billion yen — making it Japan’s second biggest IPO this year.Its shares jumped as much as 7.7 percent in morning trade before paring the gains to sit 4.7 percent higher at 1,508 yen.The company previously said it planned to issue around 21.5 million new shares, in addition to more than 63 million to be sold at home and abroad by existing shareholders Bain Capital and Toshiba.Kioxia is among several Japanese semiconductor producers the government is subsidising as it seeks to triple the sales of domestically produced chips to more than 15 trillion yen by 2030.Firms such as Toshiba and NEC helped Japan dominate in microchips during the 1980s, but competition from South Korea and Taiwan saw its global market share slump from more than 50 percent to around 10 percent now.But as China ramps up military pressure on Taiwan, heralding volatility on the self-ruled island’s ability to produce semiconductors, hopes are running high that Japan will re-emerge as a new chip hub.

Call it an antidote to fast fashion: Japanese jeans hand-dyed with natural indigo and weaved on a clackety vintage loom, then sold at a premium to global denim connoisseurs.Unlike their mass-produced cousins, the tough garments crafted at the small Momotaro Jeans factory in southwest Japan are designed to be worn for decades, and come with a lifetime repair warranty.On site, Yoshiharu Okamoto gently dips cotton strings into a tub of deep blue liquid, which stains his hands and nails as he repeats the process.The cotton is imported from Zimbabwe, but the natural indigo they use is harvested in Japan — its colour far richer than synthetic imitations, according to Okamoto.He calls it a “time-consuming and costly” method, commonly used to dye kimonos in the 17th-19th century Edo period.Momotaro Jeans was established in 2006 by Japan Blue, one of a few dozen denim producers in the seaside town of Kojima, renowned for their artisan quality.”We’re very strict about all aspects of manufacturing,” Japan Blue’s president Masataka Suzuki told AFP.That includes “whether the sewing is done properly, and whether the dye is beautiful,” making local craftspeople with traditional manufacturing skills indispensable.Their efforts do not come cheap, however. A standard pair of Momotaro Jeans retails for around 30,000 yen ($200) while a silk-blend pair costs 60,000 yen.The brand’s most expensive offering, woven by hand on a wooden machine converted from a luxury kimono loom, has a price tag of over 200,000 yen.Following in the footsteps of popular high-end Japanese denim brands such as Osaka-based Evisu and Sugar Cane in Tokyo, interest in Japan Blue is growing among overseas shoppers.They now account for 40 percent of retail sales, and the company recently opened its sixth Kyoto store targeting deep-pocketed tourists.- ‘Niche’ reputation -Denim-making flourished from the 1960s in Kojima, which has a long history of cotton-growing and textile-making.In the Edo period, the town produced woven cords for samurai to bind sword handles. It then switched to producing split-toe “tabi” socks and, later, school uniforms.Now denim from Kojima is used by international luxury fashion brands.The market for Japanese jeans “has grown in the last 10 to 15 years”, said Michael Pendlebury, a tailor operating a repair shop in Britain called The Denim Doctor.Although revered by denim aficionados in Western countries, they remain “not quite affordable for most” with something of a “niche” reputation, Pendlebury said.”Mass-produced denim brands like Levis, Diesel and Wrangler are the largest, and more worn, but the highest quality is still Japanese in my opinion,” he said, adding that the weak yen and a tourism boom could boost sales of made-in-Japan jeans.Momotaro Jeans is named after a folklore hero in Okayama, where Kojima is located. It’s part of the wider denim-producing Sanbi area, which also includes Hiroshima.Another factor that makes brands like Momotaro Jeans idiosyncratic — and expensive — is the use of very noisy old shuttle-weaving machines, which have only a quarter of the output of the latest factory looms.They often break down, but the only people who know how to repair the machines are in their 70s or older, according to Shigeru Uchida, a weaving craftsman at Momotaro.The brand uses a handful of shuttle looms made in the 1980s by a company owned by Toyota.”There are only a few of them in Japan now” because they are no longer made, the 78-year-old Uchida said, walking back and forth between the machines to detect unusual sounds that could signal a breakdown.Despite the complexities, he says their fabric makes it worth it.”The texture is very smooth to the touch… and when made into jeans, it lasts quite a long time,” Uchida said.Suzuki says Momotaro Jeans is a “sustainable” choice because “no matter when you bring it to us, we will take responsibility for fixing it”.”When people spend a lot of time in their jeans, the path of their life is left on the clothes,” depending on how they wear or wash them and even where they live, Suzuki said. “We want to preserve such a mark as long as possible.”