Vice Minister Wants Foreigners To Help Japan

[Mulboyne]

Bloomberg: Japan Says Nationality Won't Matter in Market Reforms
Japan has to open up its financial markets over the next three years even if that means attracting companies that put domestic banks and brokerages out of business, said Kotaro Tamura, the vice minister for financial services. Japan will lose further ground as a global financial center if it fails to attract hedge funds, private equity, Islamic funds and other investors, Tamura said..."Nationality doesn't matter as long as such investors can contribute to Japan's interests," he said. "We must carry out reforms in three years, otherwise we'll fail" to compete with rivals such as Hong Kong and Singapore...Japanese companies in the finance industry with local management teams may fail in competition against international firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Tamura said. "Nevertheless, we're prepared for that"... Opening of financial markets will be a centerpiece of a June economic reform paper, Yamamoto said this week. One plan announced is to replicate London's Canary Wharf in Tokyo to encourage more overseas financial institutions to locate in Tokyo. Construction rules may be eased for the area along the Sumida River in Tokyo near the Tokyo Stock Exchange...more...

Tamura's comments go further than other recent statements on the same issue. Some Government spokesman appear to believe that it will be sufficient to build a gaijin ghetto of office buildings, apartments and late night restaurants to restore Tokyo's position in world finance.

[sublight]

When the Minister of Vice wants a hand, just let me know!

[Mulboyne]

In a blow for Tokyo's ambitions as a global financial centre, US mutual fund giant has decided to relocate its Japan trading desk to Hong Kong. They'll still keep fund managers and analysts on the ground but Fidelity's view of Tokyo regulators and financial infrastructure seems pretty clear.

[kurohinge1]

. . . Tamura's comments go further than other recent statements on the same issue. Some Government spokesman appear to believe that it will be sufficient to build a gaijin ghetto of office buildings, apartments and late night restaurants to restore Tokyo's position in world finance.

The J-populace, however, seem less keen:

[SIZE="4"]No foreigners please, we're Japanese[/SIZE]

Only 10 percent of Japanese who live in areas with many foreigners want to engage with them more, a government survey said.

Japan, which is largely homogenous, has allowed only limited immigration despite a rapidly greying population.

The ministry of land, infrastructure and transport surveyed the attitudes of residents in areas near Tokyo where foreigners - mostly Brazilians, Peruvians and Chinese - make up a high proportion of the population.

Ten percent of the Japanese residents said that "actively deepening interaction" with foreigners was a good thing. Seventy-six percent said they wanted minimal or no interaction.

"The most probable explanation is that there is little opportunity for foreigners and Japanese to interact," Fuminori Iwamura, an official handling urban planning at the ministry, said on Tuesday.

The survey said people were also concerned about trouble with foreign residents, including problems integrating foreign children in the schools.

. . . Japan has been unsuccessfully trying to encourage its citizens to have more children to prevent a future demographic crisis. It has limited immigration mostly to people of Japanese ancestry or with special skills . . . more

[amdg]

"The most probable explanation is that there is little opportunity for foreigners and Japanese to interact," Fuminori Iwamura, an official handling urban planning at the ministry, said on Tuesday.

No. The most likely explanation is the yellow journalism in TV and print media constantly demonising foreigners as miscreants and dangers to society. That probably has something more to do with it.

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Taxes to be cut for urban renewal in Tokyo / Govt to give incentives for building intl financial center

The government has mapped out measures to support large-scale redevelopment by the private sector in three areas of Tokyo, aiming to enhance Japan's international competitiveness in financial and capital markets, according to sources. The government's Unified Headquarters for Regional Revitalization plans to introduce measures to reduce the burden on firms from real estate acquisition tax, registration and license tax, and fixed asset tax, or even exempt companies altogether. It also plans to reduce income tax, corporate tax and individual residential tax for landowners who agree to sell their land for the redevelopment project. The government, which also plans to relax the regulations on ratios of building volume to lot, is to press ahead with the project as early as fiscal 2008. The project is a concrete step toward creating an international financial center based on the "special financial zone" project advocated by Yuji Yamamoto, former state minister in charge of financial policy. One of the three areas targeted for the measures is the Nihonbashi, Yaesu and Ginza area, a financial district centering on the Bank of Japan. The Otemachi, Marunouchi and Yurakucho area is home to the headquarters of the major banks and other key domestic financial institutions, while the Akasaka and Roppongi area plays host to many foreign affiliated financial institutions.

The government is to offer preferential tax treatment to private firms that carry out the government-certified redevelopment project on a certain scale to create the urban foundation for an international financial center including state-of-the-art office buildings, condominiums aimed at long-term foreign residents, and international schools and medical institutions catering to foreigners.

Under the preferential tax treatment, the government is to reduce the tax burden by one third on income from the sale of land in the relevant areas. It also will cut the property registration from 0.4 percent to 0.3 percent of the price of the real estate. The planned international financial center is modeled on London's Canary Wharf--a former dockyard area transformed into a financial center--to attract highly specialized human resources, including foreign businesspeople, to enhance international competitiveness in Tokyo. In June 2007, the then Urban Renaissance Headquarters decided to promote the urban renewal project to reinforce the functions of certain area as international financial strongholds and since then has been working to select areas for the financial center and studying support measures. Major real estate company Mori Building Co. has already mapped out a large redevelopment project to build an international financial center for financial institutions, law offices and accounting firms in Roppongi in Minato Ward. Redevelopment plans in the three target areas are now gathering momentum, with the expectation that demand for offices by foreign-affiliated financial institutions will rise. The preferential tax treatment is expected to strengthen the momentum, analysts said.

[Greji]

foreigners as miscreants and dangers to society.

Hey AMDG, leave me out of this, he was talking about FGs as a whole!