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.
This is exactly where I thought the “in attempt to…” part of the headline was going myself, sincerely