A U.S.-based entrepreneur who became the first Japanese invited to a U.S. presidential State of the Union address has said that Japan must shake off its "stagnation" by fostering innovation and ditching outdated ideas.

Speaking in Tokyo, Hiroyuki Fujita, the 47-year-old founder and president of Ohio-based electronics firm Quality Electrodynamics, claimed "there are too many tacit, meaningless rules in Japan, for instance, people majoring in science cannot be a diplomat, and that has generated a sense of stagnation in Japanese society.

"Those are problems that have long been pointed out, but people don't seem to have an intention of changing them," he added.