KYOTO — Kansai's annual gathering of corporate leaders kicked off Wednesday in Kyoto with calls for young people to go abroad and for the region's identity to be strengthened within Asia.

"Due to protectionist trends in the world economy and increasing political unrest internationally, it seems that Japan is turning inward. Young people don't want to work abroad, and aren't motivated because they don't have a place to compete. Is Japan OK?" asked Hiroshi Shimozuma, head of the Kansai Economic Federation, at Wednesday's opening session.

Although many Japanese and foreign educators who have links with Japan have been saying for at least a decade that fewer students are studying abroad, or at least in the West, the issue was not high on the radar of the political and senior corporate worlds until last year, when the president of Harvard University said only five Japanese were studying at its undergraduate school.