VANTAA, FINLAND—Japanese electronic component manufacturer, Murata, has completed and inaugurated its new MEMS sensor manufacturing facility in Finland.

TOKYO—Major Japanese manufacturers, including Toyota and Panasonic, said they would boost employees’ salaries for the first time in years, heeding a call from the prime minister ahead of a sales tax rise next month.

WASHINGTON—Japanese auto parts maker Bridgestone Group has agreed to pay a fine of $425 million to the U.S. Department of Justice over anti-trust allegations related to the sale of anti-vibration rubber products for vehicles.

TOKYO—After three decades as one of the world’s biggest exporters, Japan is now a net importer, due to outsourcing and energy-related imports.

SAITAMA, Japan—People and humanoid robots are working side by side on an assembly line at an assembly plant here that makes money-handling machines.

KAWAUCHI, Japan—A Tokyo-based manufacturer will open a factory in this village that was up until this April completely evacuated due to the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster.

TOKYO—Japanese manufacturers are doing more assembly jobs by hand in an effort to slash power consumption in the face of possible electric shortages.