A government panel reviewing Japan's decoration and medal award system has proposed almost doubling the number of foreign awardees to 300 per year in a phased approach.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government is expected to revise the system from this fall's awards based on Thursday's proposal, which also calls for giving more awards to Japanese who have contributed to local communities, or are helping to deal with the country's aging population and low birthrate such as nursery caregivers.
The advisory panel, set up in January, has been reviewing the award system, unchanged since 2003, to see if the standards for selecting awardees fit with the times.
Awardees of cordons and medals are currently decided based on recommendations from relevant ministries, which receive lists of candidates from local governments.
The panel called for a greater involvement by ministers in identifying candidates, while also proposing the introduction of a special recommendation rule to increase the number of female awardees.
This year's spring decorations recognized around 4,000 Japanese and 90 foreigners for their achievements in business, culture and other areas. Women accounted for 9.5 percent of the Japanese recipients.
Among foreign recipients were Strobe Talbott, former U.S. deputy secretary of state, and Jerome Friedman, Nobel laureate in physics and institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.