Way forward: Juneja (second from left) chatting with Kameda Seika employees as they make rice cracker samples at the testing centre of the company’s headquarters in Niigata, Japan. — AFP
THE Indian-born head of one of Japan’s most famous snack brands has warned that the country must change its mindset and admit more immigrants to get the economy back to the glory of its boom years.
Politicians have struggled for years to recover from the so-called lost decades as a range of differing programmes have failed to kickstart growth, including an ultra-loose monetary policy and stimulus measures.
And as the new government of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba eyes a fresh drive to bring back the heyday of its global tech domination, Lekh Juneja – the head of rice cracker giant Kameda Seika – said he worries his adopted country has lost its edge.
Kameda’s expansion mirrored Japan’s postwar boom, increasing revenues tenfold between 1965 and 1974 and becoming synonymous with the nationally adored “senbei” crackers in the process.
But the country that gave the world the Sony Walkman, the bullet train and Super Mario is no longer setting the pace in technology, overtaken by Silicon Valley, South Korea and China.
In the late 1980s, Japanese firms dominated the world’s top 10 companies by market capitalisation. Today not one makes the list.
The population is ageing and projected to drop by almost a third in the next 50 years, and firms are already having problems filling vacancies.
Although it has relaxed the rules in recent years, Japan has not turned in a big way to immigration as a solution.
The country “has no choice” but to allow in more immigrants, said Juneja.
According to a recent study, Japan needs to more than triple its number of foreign workers to 6.88 million by 2040. Currently it’s on track to be almost a million short. — AFP
