JA 35 – Japan’s competitiveness and attractiveness issues in 2014: The high-stakes goals of the Abe government, between discourse and reality – Oct. 2014
In line with the topics introduced by the previous issue of Japan Analysis (focusing on Japan’s openness to the world), this 35th issue of Japan Analysis explores the various actions recently initiated by the Abe government to make Japan a more attractive place for business and international investment. Japan’s attractiveness seemed to be seriously damaged in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In April 2014, the Japanese Premier allowed the broadcasting of a video recording – entitled “Open the Door to Success in Japan” and easily found on YouTube – in which he went so far as to praise Japan’s improving business environment in grammatically flawless, albeit wooden, English. “Now is the time, the best time, I should say. The Japan you are looking at is different from the one you saw ten years ago. Japan is undergoing changes of a once-in-decades nature. For your investment into Japan, the opportunity now unfolding is also one that appears only once in decades”. This message serves as one of the pillars of an advertisement campaign coordinated by the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) in order to celebrate the country’s regained attractiveness and Tokyo’s win in the race to host the 2020 Olympic Games.
Summary
– CLOSE UP ON THE NEWS –
18 months of Abenomics (Jean-Yves Colin)
Large-scale urban projects and ambitions of excellence: “Tokyo 2020”, an opportunity for Abe Shinzō’s government (Xavier Mellet)
– POINTS OF NEWS–
Komatsu Masayuki, “On the art of refuting foreigners’ views during international conferences”, Chūō kōron, November 2013 (Translated from Japanese source by Sophie Buhnik)
Tsuji Takuya, “Let us concentrate our investments inside the centralized urban areas of our regions”, Chūō kōron, July 2014 (Translated from Japanese source by Arnaud Grivaud)