India’s skilled workforce employed in Japan will now find it easier to obtain permanent residency there as the country is planning to ease its rules for issuing ‘green cards’ from April this year.

“It will now take just one-two years for skilled foreigners to get permanent residency in Japan as opposed to five years,” said Kazuya Nakajo, Chief Director General, Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO), at a press conference co-organised with industry body CII on Tuesday. Nakajo said the relaxation of the Green Card system and of visa requirement was part of the country’s three-pronged strategy to improve the environment for foreign companies.

The Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan is also getting Japanese laws and regulations translated into foreign languages to attract investors. The third part of the strategy involves putting in place an investment advisor assignment system.

“We will try to play go-between to bring Indian and Japanese businesses together,” Nakajo said.

The Japanese official pointed out that there was an investment imbalance between Japan and India. The total inflow of FDI from India to Japan till 2015 was only $0.074 billion while Japanese investment into India was $14.1 billion.

To bridge the information gap between Japan and partner countries such as India, JETRO has an Invest Japan Business Support Centre (IBSC) which has six temporary offices in six major Japanese cities. Specialists at the IBSC give advice on how to start a business in Japan including legal advice and information on business cost, market regulations, real estate, human resources as well as business culture.

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