Context:
- Japan is facing a shortage of 200,000 information technology professionals due to an ageing population and falling birth rate and India can fill the gap with its huge talent pool.
- There are about 920,000 IT professionals in Japan. There is an immediate demand for more than 200,000 professionals and the shortage is likely to touch 800,000 by 2030.
Easing of rules
- Japan eased rules for issuance of green card and permanent residency status for highly skilled professionals in April last year. The new norms shortened the required period for permanent residency to one year from five years earlier.
- Also, about 30,000 Japanese firms operate in China, much more than in U.S. In India 1,369 companies from Japan have set up base while only 71 Indian companies operate in Japan.
- Of the total number of Japanese companies operating in India, 220 are out of Maharashtra, 197 in Tamil Nadu and 162 in the National Capital Region.
- Japan’s announcement comes at a time when the U.S. administration imposed curbs on H-1B visas affecting companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro, which rely on the visas to do work for American firms.
- As per the new U.S. policy, companies will have to prove that its H-1B employee at a third-party site has specific and non-qualifying speculative assignments in a speciality occupation. Now on, H-1B visas would be valid only for the period for which the employee has work at a third-party site. Earlier, it was valid for three years at a time and the move came ahead of H-1B visa filing which starts on April 2.
- Japan has set an inward foreign investment target of $330 billion by 2020.
- Japan has become the third-largest investor for India after Mauritius and Singapore. Companies such as Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi have already initiated the process of establishing an R&D centre in India.
- Japan also eased rules for Indian travellers and from January this year, applicants do not require to submit their employment certificate and letters of explanation for multiple-entry visas. The number of documents to be submitted has been cut to three.