Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a meeting with Dr. Angela Merkel, the Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, at the Prime Minister's Official Residence on Wednesday, August 29, 2007.

Japan reported today that retail sales fell in July with sales at department stores and car dealerships hit by a series of storms.

Sales fell 2.2% in July from a year earlier, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said today in Tokyo, the biggest drop since June 2005.

Derisory annual pay increases of about $100, has also dampened consumer sentiment and domestic car sales are at a 30-year low. 

An illustration of the tentative performance of the economy of the wealthiest nation on earth, is illustrated by data showing that the number of passenger cars owned per household in Japan fell in fiscal 2006, which ended on March 31,2007, for the first time since records started in 1975, sinking to 1.107 at the end of March due to sluggish sales of larger cars.

The number of private cars owned by households came to 57.24 million as of March 31, up 0.7 percent from a year before, according to data compiled by the Automobile Inspection & Registration Information Association.