Japan's e-strategy aims to net users

With a domestic economy mired in recession for much of the 1990s the IT revolution passed largely unnoticed in Japan. Just 12 per cent of people use a home computer to access the Internet and awareness of advanced communications technology remains low.

A combination of high telephony charges, a lack of competition and obsolete laws which require procedures to be followed in writing have inhibited the nation's ability to take a lead in IT and communications services.

But at last Japan's slow moving bureaucracy seems ready to act, and Mr Kouji Hamada, vice-minister for international affairs, visited Ireland this week looking for ideas and to market the "E-Japan Strategy".

"I'm also a Japanese bureaucrat but I recognise speed is of key importance," says Mr Hamada. "We have to make Japan the most advanced IT nation within five years."

Japan's quest to become a global e-hub is motivated, much like Ireland's, after it became clear that it had fallen behind its competitors. Internet penetration levels in other Asian countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong are already more than 40 per cent.

The solution is massive investment in high-speed Internet network, a legal framework for electronic commerce, e-government and skills, according to Mr Hamada.

"Our budget for fiscal 2001 is some two trillion yen and this will be added to over the following years of the plan," he says. "We are offering tax breaks and preferential treatment for companies who build fibre optics."

The E-Japan strategy has set ambitious targets of connecting at least 30 million households to high-speed "always on" Internet and another 10 million households to ultra high-speed Internet by 2005.

"Although ISDN lines, Digital subscriber line and wireless local loop technologies are currently being deployed throughout city areas these are only transitional technologies," says Mr Hamada.

"We plan to offer ultra high-speed Internet direct into the home through direct fibre into the home," he says. "This will provide speeds of up to 10 megabits per second at low costs to consumers."

Mr Hamada rejects US criticism that the Japanese telecoms market is closed to foreign competition and this is one reason for its relative backwardness.

"In fact in July last year Sir Peter Bonfield of British Telecom said it was easy to enter Japan," he says. But Japan will have to look beyond its borders to promote its E-strategy, according to Mr Hamada. "We need to attract about 30,000 foreign IT experts by 2005 as well as increasing the expertise at masters and doctorate levels."

Although success for the EJapan strategy is not assured, the quick uptake of mobile Internet (26 million people currently access Internet through mobiles in Japan) illustrates an appetite among the public for information communications technologies.

The Government's commitment to promote innovative technologies was illustrated by its decision to allocate third generation mobile licences for less than one million yen (€6,348).

"We are keeping an eye on how quick operators with UK and German licences roll-out services and prices for consumers," says Mr Hamada.

Japan will benefit from one of the first worldwide roll-outs of third generation mobile services later this year.