Japan is attracting more interest from foreign asset managers, sparked by the government’s drive to remake Tokyo into a major financial hub, a top regulatory official said.
"People feel that Japan may be getting out of deflation and there could be an economic transformation,” Shigeru Ariizumi, the Financial Services Agency’s vice minister for international affairs, said in an interview. "How can we dispel the negative sort of bias toward Japan that has accumulated over the past two or three decades is the key.”
The commitment to change Japan’s image is fully supported by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his administration, Ariizumi said. An increasing number of foreign workers, as well as rising rate of women and older workers in the economy, are ways the country is trying to overcome an aging population problem, a challenge not unique within Asia to Japan, he said.