2001: Japan's Internet odyssey
Extra budget to contain some high-tech projects
KAORU MORISHITA
Staff writer
The government plans an electronic toll-collection system to ease Japan's infamous traffic jams.
It's a party on the Internet, starting New Year's Eve 2000 and lasting the entire year. The host: Japan's government. The point: encourage more people, schools, local governments and companies to get online.
Funding for the New Millennium Gate-year Festival - 300 million yen ($2.9 million) - is included in the government's latest spending plan aimed at both sustaining the economic recovery and enticing the nation into the digital age.
Deliberations on the second supplementary budget for fiscal 1999 worth 6.789 trillion yen begin this week at the current extraordinary session of the Japanese parliament. The government has earmarked 908 billion yen for infrastructure development in information technology and other science technology such as projects involving human-gene analysis and global warming.
Internet age
Japan's move into the Internet age is viewed by many as rather behind the times, compared with other industrialized countries.
The virtual expo will be orchestrated by Taichi Sakaiya, director general of the Economic Planning Agency. Sakaiya said the government expects the year-long festival to trigger an increase in Japan's Internet users from the current 10% of the populace to 30%.
The EPA director has an interesting track record on the symbolic importance of such festivals. Thirty years ago, when he was an official at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Sakaiya planned Expo '70, held in Osaka, which celebrated the nation's rapid economic growth. Sakaiya said the government aims to "make 2001 the first year for the Internet to gain widespread popularity."
To develop the nation's digital highways, the government plans to spend about 10 billion yen on the upgrading of cable-television facilities and equipment. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications intends to distribute the subsidies to more than 100 cable-TV services, enabling them to provide digital broadcasting and Internet access.
In Japan's satellite-broadcasting arena, digital broadcasting is scheduled to start late next year. Conventional terrestrial broadcasting is supposed to go digital by the end of 2010. Cable TV services are urged to be ready for the digital broadcasting, but their limited financial resources are seen as a hurdle to digitization of cable TV services. The ministry expects that high-speed Internet access through digitized cables to be a key infrastructure for networking society.
The supplementary budget spending includes investment to develop geographic information systems jointly between the public and private sector. The government plans to integrate the existing geographic information such as road maps, city-planning maps and aerial photographs in digitized form and make them available for businesses and individuals through the Internet. Such an information system is expected to be an integral part in systems such as the intelligent transport system (ITS) and car navigation.
Electronic tolls
As for ITS-related spending, the government plans to spend 242.5 billion yen to install an electronic toll-collection system at 900 highway toll gates. The system enables drivers to pass toll gates without stopping by charging the fee to the driver through a wireless recognition system. The Ministry of Construction expects that the automatic toll-collection system will enhance the transportation efficiency by reducing traffic congestion.
Of overall supplementary budget spending, 773 billion yen is expected to be set aside to help finance small businesses.
The Posts Ministry plans to spend 500 million yen as a subsidy specifically aimed for research and investment by entrepreneurial companies in Internet-related businesses. The ministry plans to subsidize up to 40 million yen for a company, or up to two-thirds of the company's research-and-development investment.
In order to promote capital investment to entrepreneurial companies, MITI plans to use 36 billion yen to boost the capital of national financial institutions in charge of financing small businesses. The increased capital will be invested in entrepreneurial companies through investment in venture-capital funds.
The government has earmarked 192 billion yen for employment measures including both new subsidies to create jobs in growth industries and a safety net for workers in declining sectors.
The government also plans to create new subsidies for emerging companies in growth sectors to create new jobs. The government intends to provide several million yen each to model companies selected from each prefecture that are emerging in growth sectors and creating new jobs. The companies can use the subsidies for job training, welfare and services for employees.
Major restructuring
The Ministry of Labor plans to create a new subsidy for companies that employ laid-off workers in one-company towns, such as Musashi-Murayama in Tokyo, whose employment had been solely depended on Nissan Motor Co. The town now faces serious unemployment due to factory closure.
The ministry plans to offer the subsidy to several businesses that are carrying out major restructuring. The subsidy will be paid to companies that hire workers from the major businesses' subcontractors or self-employed people whose businesses are affected by factory shutdowns.
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