The government may relax visa regulations for Chinese in an effort to boost their visits to Japan ninefold as the tourism industry seeks to ease its reliance on the shrinking domestic population.
The country wants to attract 9 million Chinese visitors by 2019, Yoshiaki Hompo, the head of the Japan Tourism Agency, said in an interview Monday. He declined to elaborate on what visa changes are being discussed.
"We are trying to relax the stringent policies taken by our government," Hompo said. Visa regulations for other Asian nations may also be liberalized, he said.