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":246242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[103060,1487,84,5729,1294,555,103064,465,386,103061,103062,103063,59094,103059,103066,103065,56,54,55,52487],"class_list":["post-246241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-argeli","tag-asia","tag-business","tag-cash","tag-economy","tag-industry","tag-influx","tag-investment","tag-japan","tag-low-value-crop","tag-mitsumata","tag-money-supply","tag-nepal","tag-poor-country","tag-rich-nation","tag-small-village","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-yen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}