The Abe Administration set the goal to increase the number of foreign visitors to Japan to 40 million by the year 2020 when Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in Tokyo. (*)

The government of Japan also set the goal of doubling the number of foreign students learning at Japanese universities to 300,000 for a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree or even for a doctor’s degree.

Furthermore, the government is loosening the visa requirements for foreign talents to get a job in Japan through vocational schools where foreign students can learn special vocational skills and can sometimes acquire national qualification of certain skills.

Foreign entrepreneurs can now found their companies in Japan more easily than before in terms of legal registration requirements of their companies.

Business opportunities in Japan for foreigners are rapidly expanding because of the following environmental shifts:

-        Decreasing working population in Japan

-        Abenomics being in place consisting of deregulation, special business districts, better access to capital etc.

-        Demand to communicate in foreign languages with surging number of foreign visitors

-        Demand of foreign entrepreneurs to stimulate and increase the number of start-ups

-        Strong demand to introduce abroad and export the products and services of SME in Japan, which have world class skills and quality, yet do not speak English

Besides study and business, there are a lot of reasons for foreign youngsters to come and visit Japan as below:

-        If you are a Japanese subculture lover like manga, anime, games, figures, cosmetic plays, young fashion or J-pop, Tokyo and other major cities give you best access to not only their shops but also actual designers, producers or even talents!  You can be just a consumer or could be a disciple.

-        If you are interested in Japanese traditional culture like gardening, Japanese painting, calligraphy, pottery, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, incense-smelling ceremony, traditional musical instruments (shakuhachi, shamisen, koto etc.) or budo (judo, kendo, aikido, karate, shorinji, iai etc.) or traditional games like shogi or go, there are myriad of places to visit to observe or experience, or even to be a disciple.  

In this blog, I would like to share with you what is going on in Japan to update you with the above mentioned changing Japanese scenes.

*Due to the COVID-19, the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be postponed until around summer of 2021, although it is still called 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.