Provisional Translation by the Cabinet Office

Program to Intensively Attract Foreign Direct Investment
in Regional Japan
April 16, 2019
Adopted by the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan

1. Basic Idea
Japan has actively promoted foreign direct investment (FDI) in Japan. The
investment environment has steadily improved and FDI volume has increased.
However, investments have been concentrated in certain major metropolitan
areas such as Tokyo.
Regions throughout Japan possess various regional resources and outstanding
labor forces, including unique companies with technical capabilities, distinctiveindustrial clusters, agricultural, forestry, and fishery products and tourism
resources. It is vital to link the strengths of these regions to the sales channels,technologies, human resources, and know-how of foreign companies. Doing sowill generate new demand both in Japan and overseas and innovation, raise
productivity, create quality employment opportunities, eventually leading tosustained energization of regional economies.
With this awareness, the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment inJapan decided last year to launch the Support Program for Regional Foreign
Direct Investment in Japan (hereinafter, “Support Program”) in order to ascertain
the distinctive aspects of each region and strategically attract foreign companies
in the most effective manner for each region. In fiscal year 2018, the Ministry ofEconomy, Trade and Industry and the Japan External Trade Organization(hereinafter, “JETRO”), working with related entities, provided support to 24
local governments 1 for their activities to attract foreign companies, including
formulating related strategies.
Some of those local governments have reached the implementation stage ofactivities to attract foreign companies, including formulating specific strategies
to attract foreign companies. Strengthening the Support Program and providing
1In October 2018, the Ministry of Economy , Trade and Industry and JETRO decided to support thefollowing24 local governments: Miyagi Prefecture; Fukushima Prefecture; Ibaraki Prefecture, Chiba
Prefecture; Aichi Prefecture; Mie Prefecture; Wakayama Prefecture; Fukuoka Prefecture; Kumamoto
Prefecture; Hokkaido Asahikawa Regional Industries Invigoration Council; Sendai city, Miyagi; Tsukubacity, Ibaraki; Yokohama city, Kanagawa; Komoro city, Nagano; Nagoya city, Aichi; Matsuzaka city andIga city, Mie; Kyoto city, Kyoto; Osaka city, Osaka; Kobe city, Hyogo; Fukuoka city, Kitakyushu city andKurume city, Fukuoka; and Karatsu city, Saga. It was decided to add Hokkaido in April 2019.

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intensive support to these local governments will lead to a steady building up ofactual achievement in attracting foreign companies. It is also important to workon various fronts, including encouraging local governments to formulate
strategies to attract foreign companies. These measures will further promote
regional FDI.
In addition, we will work to further improve Japan’s overall businessenvironment. By doing so, we aim to achieve the goal of doubling the inward
FDI stocks to 35 trillion yen by 2020.

2. Concrete support and promotion measures(1) Strengthening the Support Program[1] Providing preferential support for local governments that have reached
the implementation stage of activities to attract foreign companies
Local governments often face three deficiencies, namely 1) deficiencies
in name recognition outside Japan, 2) deficiencies in human resourcesthat can implement activities to attract foreign companies, and 3)
deficiencies in coordination between policy measures. Those
deficiencies need to be overcome, especially by local governments thathave reached the implementation stage of activities to attract foreigncompanies (hereinafter, “priority local governments”). For that purpose,
the Japanese government and JETRO will work together to provide
preferential support to priority local governments as follows:(a) Strengthening of top-to-top promotion projects:
response to deficiencies in name recognition outside Japanl Governors of priority local governments will be given priority toparticipate in Invest Japan seminars held outside Japan. Efforts
will be actively made to hold seminars and undertake foreignbusiness invitation projects intended for countries/regions andfields that priority local governments are targeting at.
l Priority will be given to support priority local governments so thatthey can hold Regional Business Conference (hereinafter, “RBC”).
Foreign companies that local governments hope to attract areinvited to RBC, and various activities take place, including top-totop promotion by governors of priority local governments andmatching between foreign companies and regional companies.

2(b) Strengthening of human resources for attracting foreign companies:
response to labor shortagel Training for staff of priority local governments responsible for
attracting foreign companies and consulting services for those
activities and support for active use of foreign talents 2 to attract
foreign companies will be provided.
l Developing Specialists and reinforcing system of JETRO
appropriate for handling countries/regions that priority local
governments target, so that JETRO can strategically support
those local governments.
l Strengthen cooperation among JETRO, management support
organizations (including regional financial institutions and businessorganizations), and other various entities 3 . This will strengthen
collaboration between foreign companies and local businesses andenhance matching skills of local governments that enables foreigncompanies to secure local human resources.

(c) Strengthening of policy measures to attract foreign companies:
response to insufficient coordination between measuresl The government and JETRO will actively propose to priority local
governments optimal policy packages including effective use ofsubsidies for promoting regional reinvigoration 4 and providingincentives to foreign companies. Those packages will include
further coordination with other measures of stimulating inboundtourism demand and boosting agricultural, forestry, and fisheryproduct exports, which will make the packages more effective inpromoting regional revitalization.

[2] Promotion of formulation of strategies and participation in Support
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There is a case, for example, of a Coordinator for International Relation (CIR) who recruited throughthe Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme contributes to attract foreign companies, while amain mission of CIRs is to help international exchange-related operations. JET Programme is operated
through the collaboration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Ministry ofForeign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and the Council ofLocal Authorities for International Relations.
It is envisioned that in addition to various business organizations, this will involve “Yorozu SupportCenters” (organizations for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation), Professional Human
Resource Offices, and Business Succession Support Centers.
Changes are being made from fiscal year 2019 to improve how the system operates, including revisionof the upper limit on applications.

3Programsl JETRO will continue to support local governments to formulate
strategies to attract foreign companies.
l JETRO will uncover successful cases where attracting investment
from overseas has contributed to the revitalization of regional
economies, analyze the factors behind those successes, compile
casebooks of these cases, and broadly disseminate them among
local governments. This will spread awareness that FDI is an effective
measure for ongoing efforts to revitalize regional economies andencourage local governments to participate in Support Programs.
The casebooks will also be actively distributed at various events,including RBC and Japan Business Conference, an all Japan versionof RBC expected to be held in 2020.

(2) Efforts to further improve Japan’s business environment[1] Foster opportunities for cooperation and partnerships with foreigncompanies through knowledge of successful FDI examples [CabinetOffice, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, JETRO]
In order to eliminate the tendency of entities to hesitate to partner,
collaborate, or work with foreign companies simply because they areforeign companies and promote better understanding of doing businesswith foreign companies, efforts will be made to broadly disseminate thecasebooks of successful cases discussed in (1) [2] above tomanagement support organizations (including regional financial
institutions and business organizations), local companies, and othervarious entities.

[2] Promote the introduction of online one-stop service for incorporation[Japan Economic Revitalization Bureau]
Efforts will be made to ensure that by the end of FY2020 it will be possible
to incorporate a company with one set of procedures in a single day bycompleting a system where all necessary procedures can be completed
via a single website.

[3] Accelerate and expand the translation of Japanese laws and regulations
by measures such as using AI. [Ministry of Justice]4

An examination will be made of measures to fundamentally accelerate
the translation of laws and regulations into foreign languages bymeasures such as using AI. A system for providing translations moresuitable for users will also be considered.

[4] Communicate the state of efforts for Corporate Governance Reform[Financial Services Agency]
Efforts by companies and investors based on the Corporate Governance
Code and the Stewardship Code will be validated from the viewpoint ofraising corporate value in the medium- and long-term. Information about
this validation will be actively communicated to parties both in Japan andoverseas, including overseas institutional investors.

[5] Work toward improving Japan’s business environment [Japan Economic
Revitalization Bureau]
Efforts will continue to be made to improve Japan’s businessenvironment and to have Japan’s business environment properly
evaluated, taking into consideration Japan’s ranking in the World Bank’s
Doing Business Ranking. This includes promoting online one-stopservice for incorporation ([2]).

[6] Ensure that past plans adopted by the Council for Promotion of Foreign
Direct Investment in Japan are steadily implemented
Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan have in thepast adopted three plans, namely “Five Promises for Attracting Foreign
Businesses to Japan” (March 17, 2015), “Policy Package for Promoting
Foreign Direct Investment into Japan to Make Japan a Global Hub” (May20, 2016), and “Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment inJapan Working Group for Revising Regulations and Administrative
Procedures Final Report” (April 24, 2017). Efforts will be made to ensurethat measures decided in those plans, especially those that havedeadlines, those deadlines are met (see below for details).
² With regard to multilingual speech translation service by mobile
telephones and other communication devices, R&D and social
experimentation will be conducted over the next five years. After
that, the usable languages will be expanded from the current four5

languages (Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean) to ten(adding Spanish, French, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, andBurmese). Furthermore, in addition to travel conversation, speechtranslation shall be realized for conversation in areas such asprocedures in everyday living and healthcare on a practical level.
With these initiatives, the goal is to widely disseminate multilingual
speech translation systems. 5 [Ministry of Internal Affairs andCommunications ]² The proportion of international students employed in Japan after
graduation (with a bachelor’s, master’s and / or doctoral degree)
should be increased to 50% by fiscal year 2020, up fromapproximately 30% by fiscal year 2013 6 . Toward this goal, thefollowing measures will be taken. 7 [Ministry of Education, Culture,Sports, Science and Technology; Ministry of Health, Labour andWelfare]l The number of courses on Japanese corporate culture,business Japanese language and etc. at universities and othereducational institutions will be doubled, and the number ofinternational students who have participated internshipprograms will be increased. To this end, international students
who have completed specified programs certificated by thegovernment, with Japanese language education, Japanesebusiness culture education at universities and internships, withthe appropriate involvement of the competitive ministrysupervising the programs, will be given preferential treatment,
including simplifying the application procedures in acquiring orchanging their status of residence with less documentation
requirement and less processing time. In addition, support will
be provided for universities in developing and implementing
such programs starting next fiscal year. At the same time,interview counseling sessions for international students will takeplace in suburban areas, and internship programs andawareness raising seminars on employment for international
students at the Tokyo Employment Service Center for
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Follow up to “Five Promises for Attracting Foreign Businesses to Japan” (Adopted by the Council for
Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan; March 17, 2015).
36.0% as of the end of Fiscal Year 2016.
Follow up to the “Policy Package for Promoting Foreign Direct Investment into Japan to Make Japan a
Global Hub” (Adopted by the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan; May 20,2016).
Follow up to the “Policy Package for Promoting Foreign Direct Investment into Japan to Make Japan a
Global Hub” (Adopted by the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan; May 20,2016).

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Foreigners will be further improved.
² The following initiatives will be implemented to ensure that all
schoolchildren receive high quality English language instruction
within their curriculum and that they have the opportunity toencounter high quality English outside the curriculum as well. 8[Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology]
l Deploy a total of 20,000 or more external human resources
including assistant language teachers (ALTs) and those fluent
in English at all elementary schools by the 2019 fiscal year. 9l Set English achievement goals specifying “what can actually bedone in English” by the end of the 2020 fiscal year with the aimof ensuring that students at all junior and senior high schools
are equipped with practical English communication skills.
² Japanese language support will be made available by 2020 to allelementary and junior high schoolchildren who require it. (It iscurrently available to approximately 80% of such schoolchildren asof the 2014 fiscal year 10) 11[ Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology]² The preparations to start online procedures for status of residence
in FY2018 will be proceeded after considering the whole vision ofthe online procedures such as the range of target procedures andthe details of the online system approximately by the first half of2017.12 [Ministry of Justice]
8Follow up to the “Policy Package for Promoting Foreign Direct Investment into Japan to Make Japan a
Global Hub” (Adopted by the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan; May 20,2016).
9 As of December 2018, 13,044 had been assigned.
10 Around 80% as of end of Fiscal Year 2016.
11 Follow up to the “Policy Package for Promoting Foreign Direct Investment into Japan to Make Japan a
Global Hub” (Adopted by the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan; May 20,2016).
12 Follow up to the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan Working Group for
Revising Regulations and Administrative Procedures Final Report (Adopted by the Regulation andAdministrative Procedures Working Group of the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment inJapan; April 24, 2017). Acceptance of requests for utilization from affiliated organizations etc. using
online services have started to be accepted starting since March 2019, and acceptance of online
applications is expected to start in July 2019.

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