TOKYO: Businesses in Japan are curtailing operations across the country in a further blow to the economy after the government expanded its state of emergency over the coronavirus pandemic to the entire nation on Thursday.

Sogo & Seibu Co., a department store unit of Seven & i Holdings Co., will close all of its 15 stores starting Saturday, up from nine at present.

Among its rivals, Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. will close stores in Hiroshima, Shizuoka, Kagawa, Ehime and Niigata prefectures. J. Front Retailing Co. will shut 15 of its 16 stores.

Supermarket chain Ito-Yokado Co., another Seven & i unit, will move up the closing time to 8 p.m. at all stores. Rival Aeon Co. will close specialty stores at its shopping malls across the country.

Restaurant chain Skylark Holdings Co. will move up the closing time of some 3,000 stores to 8 p.m. across the country.

Zensho Holdings Co. will stop offering alcoholic drinks at all of its Sukiya "gyudon" beef-on-rice bowl restaurants.

The closure of the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan, has been extended until May 6.

Curves Holdings Co. is preparing to close all of its some 2,000 women-only fitness gyms across the country.

Major construction firms Kajima Corp. and Obayashi Corp. will promote talks with clients to halt construction work. Daiwa House Industry Co. will close all of its 76 offices in the country, up from 26.

Musical instrument maker Yamaha Corp. will shut eight plants. Hitachi Ltd. has instructed most of its some 160,000 employees in the country to work from home in principle.

JIJI Press