Address by Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs
Mr. Tetsuro YANO
at the Symposium on Movement of Natural Persons
(Mita Kaigisho, Tokyo)

March 19, 2003

It is a great honor and pleasure for me to address this symposium on "movement of natural persons." I wish to tell our perception on this issue on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is the organizer of today's symposium.

1. With globalization proceeds, facilitation of trade in goods, capital flows and the movement of the natural persons will be important all the more. As for "movement of natural persons," active discussion is being held in the economic partnership consultation between Japan and the various Asian countries, in the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), and in the WTO Services Trade Negotiations. In other words, discussion is going on in three levels, i.e., bilateral, regional and multilateral level. It is known that EU has made a broad range of pioneering efforts.

2. Last year, about 5.29 million foreigners visited our country. About 16.22 million Japanese went abroad. The share of business people among them is big. Thus business people support the economic activities of our country.

APEC has been done various efforts in the area of movement of natural persons in order to facilitate trade and investment. One of such efforts is the APEC Business Travel Card system. With this card, business trip without a visa is possible in the participating economies. The number of participating economies has been increasing since this scheme started in 1997. Now fourteen economies participate. In eight economies, i.e., Australia; Chile; Hong Kong, China; South Korea; Malaysia; New Zealand; the Philippines and Chinese Taipei, this system has actually been implemented. Japan will start the ABTC scheme in April, next month. Furthermore, Brunei, China, Indonesia, Peru and Thailand will run the scheme in the near future. A visa becomes unnecessary for Japanese business people traveling around within these economies. This card is very useful for the Japanese businesspersons.

APEC has a great possibility in promoting cooperation in this most important area of "movement of natural persons."

Various ideas such as introduction of a similar scheme to the ABTC are proposed in the WTO discussions. It is expected that discussion on a wide variety of ideas will take place today.

3. "Movement of natural persons" is an important element which cannot be missed out in order to invigorate the Japanese economy. Increase in movement of natural persons is necessary if we expand investment and trade in services.

It is the extremely important challenge how to use competitive foreign labor force for the Japanese economic activities so that the Japanese industry's competitiveness will be strengthened.

The Japanese industry has already significantly shifted a production foothold to Asia. At the same time, there are concerns that so-called hollowing out of industry occurs in Japan.

There are industries which do not go abroad for some reasons. In that case, the question whether or how it can use the foreign competitive labor force in Japan arises. In fact foreign workers have already been invited to the Japanese domestic industry. At present, about 740 thousand foreign people are working in Japan. This figure contains a part-time job by foreign students and so-called illegal workers. They are more than 1% of the total employees in Japan. The Japanese Government set its policy to actively accept skilled technical experts from abroad. In contrast, as for the reception of the so-called unskilled labor, the policy of the Japanese Government is that it is dealt cautiously. In the meantime, Japan accepts people of Japanese ancestry from South American countries. The number of these people is about 230 thousand, which account for about one-third of the foreign labor force in Japan. They mostly engage themselves as unskilled labor. Therefore there exist foreigners who are engaged in the unskilled labor area in our country. As these people live in Japan, many types of issues become clear in the social security, the education and other matters to live together in the Japanese community. As for the working conditions in Japan for Brazilians of Japanese ancestry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also organized the symposium in Tokyo last month. Lively discussion was held in order to solve various issues.

Besides foreigners of Japanese ancestry, the number of the skilled experts working legally in Japan is about 160 thousand. Regarding the information technology area, there are many foreign workers in Japan. Their contribution to activating the Japanese economy is significant. We need to deepen our discussion how to accept foreign workers in Japan when we try to design the future of the Japanese economy. In other words, is the current situation on the reception of these foreign specialists sufficient? Is there a room to improve the regulatory framework in Japan? What kind of policies should we take in order to actively draw the excellent talented people to the technical fields in Japan?

According to the statistics, foreign medical personnel in Japan are ninety-five. A nurse is also categorized in the Japanese system as a technical expert like a doctor. In order to have a work permit as a nurse in Japan, that foreigner needs to graduate from Japanese nursing school, and then obtain the Japanese qualification. Still, a type of the job is confined to the internship. It is said that many Philippine nurses are working in many countries such as Australia, Europe and the US. It is partly understandable because English is commonly used in these countries. Besides language, however, are there points for consideration? I hope that valuable information and discussion will be exchanged today in this regard.

4. The issue of "movement of natural persons" is related to many aspects such as the medical treatment, a matter of a social policy including pension and the public order concern. Therefore, an inter-disciplinary approach is vital to make a coherent policy. Now, birth rate is dropping and aging of the population is progressing in Japan. According to "Population Projection for Japan: 2001-2050," which was made public in January 2002, Japanese population will decrease after year of 2006 as a peak. When it is seen by the age of the population, child population of fourteen years old and under and working-age population from fifteen years old to sixty-four years old will decrease. The aged population which consist of sixty-five years old and over will rapidly increase from 22.04 million in 2000 to 34.73 million in 2025 and then 35.86 million in 2050. The share of aged population will increase from 17.4% in 2000 to 35.7% in 2050. What kind of society and economy should Japan build up in accordance with the change in such an environment? In this context, we should also ask ourselves how we adopt foreign workers. We should keep this issue in our mind.

5. As I indicated from the wide range of viewpoints, the issue of "movement of natural persons" is one of the most important tasks which we face today. While counter-terrorism measures should be strengthened since 9.11 and under current situation at Iraq, it is imperative to achieve the balance between efforts on those measures and on facilitation of movement of natural persons. We should examine this issue today and every day. We should refer to the experiences of other countries, too. We should share ideas based on the spirit of the international cooperation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan intends to closely consult with the foreign governments and private sectors. The Ministry will actively promote cooperation on this issue bilaterally, regionally and multilaterally.

Today's symposium is one of our efforts. I wish to reflect today's valuable exchange of views in our future policy-making.

Thank you for your attention.