INTERVIEW: Keidanren to launch new group for digitization

May 30, 2019

Tokyo--The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), the country's biggest body of employers, will establish a new group aimed at dealing with the rapid rise of digital technology around the world, the organization's Director-General Masakazu Kubota said in a recent interview.

The group, under the leadership of Keidanren Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi, will bring together discussions about digitization that have been held by respective committees of the federation, Kubota said. It will promote concepts such as so-called smart cities, in which digital technology is used in building social infrastructure, he added.

Kubota gave the media interview in lieu of the Keidanren chairman, who was hospitalized earlier this month. Nakanishi, now in the second year of his chairmanship, is expected to miss the organization's annual general meeting on Thursday.

Keidanren will not install an acting chairman and will instead share the leader's duties among vice chairmen and other senior officials, Kubota said.

"We'll try to make sure our activities are not impaired" in the absence of the chairman, said the director-general, who also admitted that there are limitations to such efforts.

Elsewhere in the interview, Kubota said Keidanren will also establish a group to push forward with structural reforms of the economy.

"To achieve sustainable growth, it would be indispensable to promote structural reforms in such areas as fiscal soundness and social security," he said. Jiji Press