Tokyo aims to become "the most startup-friendly" city in the world by building a new facility for young firms and "considerably" increasing its procurement from such companies, setting itself the goal of bolstering the number of so-called unicorn firms and new business launches in the capital by tenfold over five years.

Given that Japan’s international competitiveness has been declining since the beginning of the 1990s, a period often called “the lost decades,” Tokyo intends to achieve a “game change” through its new policy, fostering the development of startups that can grow to achieve a global footprint, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike said Thursday during a news conference.

The proposed facility is being compared to Station F in Paris, which claims to be the world’s largest startup campus, hosting about 1,000 firms and providing support programs for them.