Japan has long harvested a shrub called mitsumata for its money supply. But when mitsumata started dying out, Japan frantically searched for alternatives to make yen.<\/p>\n
It found a lifeline in the foothills of the Himalayas. A low-value crop called argeli grew abundantly and served as a perfect replacement for mitsumata.<\/p>\n
Argeli was worth very little, often the only option for farmers who’d lost their crops to wild animals. When the Japanese arrived, they turned the once low-value argeli into a cash crop.<\/p>\n
Now, one of Asia’s poorest countries is growing the money for one of Asia’s richest nations. And the influx of cash brought industry and investment to Nepal’s small villages.<\/p>\n
But while Japan loves its physical yen now, what will happen to Nepal’s new big business if the country goes cashless like the rest of Asia?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan has long harvested a shrub called mitsumata for its money supply. But when mitsumata started dying out,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[176705,521,51,2835,1700,806,176709,1197,2122,176706,176707,176708,140982,176704,176711,176710,16,15,94570],"class_list":{"0":"post-551817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-argeli","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-cash","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-industry","14":"tag-influx","15":"tag-investment","16":"tag-japan","17":"tag-low-value-crop","18":"tag-mitsumata","19":"tag-money-supply","20":"tag-nepal","21":"tag-poor-country","22":"tag-rich-nation","23":"tag-small-village","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-yen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115500008351377492","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}