"Kick-Off Statement of the IT Integration Forum Experts Meeting" has been compiled

The Commerce and Information Policy Bureau of METI compiled action plans at the Information Economy Committee of the Industrial Structure Council (chaired by Mr. Jun Murai, Chief Professor of Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University) in August 2011, toward the creation of new industries in so-called "IT integration areas", where the existing industries are transformed or different types of businesses are integrated through the unification of information technologies.

Based on the action plan, METI is currently proceeding assistance (i.e. budgetary provision) to form advanced projects which could be model cases in priority areas, such as medical or health care, transportation, and agriculture where IT integration is progressing, as well as to support collaboration between companies and research institutions in different fields targeting new business creation.

In order to create new industries, not only budgetary support, but also intensive discussions among experts from industry, academia and government are needed to respond to various problems when creating new businesses. For this purpose, METI established the "IT Integration Forum" inviting participants from industry, academia and government in many different industrial and research areas as well as IT, to share the issues and to lead them to specific action.

On June 1, 2012, the "IT Integration Forum Experts Meeting" was held to promote collaboration between industry, academia, and government in different fields, and to advance deliberation of the issues.

The participants intensively discussed Japan's future scenario, issues to be solved to realize such a scenario, and the direction of discussions.

The details of the discussions at the meeting were compiled as the "Kick-Off Statement of the IT Integration Forum Experts Meeting."

Outline of the "Kick-Off Statement"

Future scenario of Japan:

Realization of a new scenario for society called "Evidence-based Society"

An action plan on public data:

 Obligation to open public data to the public(Open by Default)

 Formulating policies on data, and disseminating such policies to the world

An action plan on data involving business activities:

 Design of incentives to promote unitization of data

• Text of the “Kick-Off Statement”(PDF:202KB) (in Japanese)

June 18, 2012

Information Economy Division, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau