Since last February the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has been engaged in an intensive study of appropriate future policies for electronics and information technology (IT) industries at the Information Economy Committee (chaired by Jun Murai, professor, Keio University) under the Industrial Structure Council. The committee compiled the study into a report titled "New Strategies for innovation in information and the economy."

1. Background

The progressive implementation of IT has spread widely across most major industrial and social systems, while over recent years many countries in the world have implemented aggressive industrial policies placing us in a “new era of mercantilism.” To redesign and rebuild our strategy toward “electronics-based nation building,” since last February the Information Economy Committee has been dedicated to the study of appropriate policies that will allow us to cope with such a new environment, utilizing also the country’s first Online Policy Council of Citizens (which has had 3,799 citizen participants over the Feb.23-Mar.15 period and received 5,974 comments).

Now we have compiled and prepared a report titled “New strategies for innovation in information and the economy: creation of new multi-faceted industries and reform of the social system’s structure premised on dramatic reductions of information communication costs.” The new strategies are aimed at strategically and comprehensively promoting (a) structural reform of the electronics and IT industries, (b) IT-based sophistication of IT user industries (primary, secondary and tertiary and their intermediate industrial sectors), and (c) development of overseas of problem solution-oriented social systems. We will invest our policy resources intensively in these areas.

2. Outline of the Report

The report analyzes and takes into consideration the causes of the tough market our electronics and IT industries are currently battling in and the tough issues they face(such as standardization strategy, insufficient investment, inward-orientedness) as well as various challenges faced by our industry as a whole and society, and proposes specific policies from the perspective of (a) promoting a dramatic reduction in information communication costs, (b) dealing with the rise of emerging markets, and (c) IT’s inherent problem-solving capabilities, converting the above challenges into a following wind. Our new policies include the following:

-Promotion of FTAs focused on a volume-zone strategy by means of “glocalization”; reduction of the effective corporate tax rate toward the international level; and industrial and business reorganization utilizing the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan
-Promotion of green IT and review of the “eco-point system” for the future
-Support for capital investment to promote domestic location of low carbon industries
(FY 2009 secondary supplementary budget will produce a pump-priming effect in the form of investment five times as large as the subsidies and jobs created for 17,500 people.)
-A policy package designed to promote cloud computing
(By 2020, creating a new, 40 trillion yen-plus service market and reducing CO2 emissions derived from information processing by about 7% from the 1990 level.)
-Implementing various measures for sophistication of task solution-oriented industry and social systems (e.g. “smart communities” and the like

Release Date

May 31, 2010

Division in Charge

Information Policy Division, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau

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