3 Ministries Told to Improve Cool Japan Measures

May 18, 2018

Tokyo- Japan's internal affairs ministry on Friday told three other ministries to improve measures taken under the government's Cool Japan strategy of promoting the country's culture abroad.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry granted subsidies to promote animation and other content overseas to companies that should have been considered low priorities for the subsidy program, the internal affairs ministry said.

The government adopted the Cool Japan strategy about five years ago. The subsidies are designed to help cover the costs to create subtitles for anime, drama and other works, dub them in foreign languages, and make other preparations to promote such content overseas.

In July 2016, the internal affairs ministry investigated 766 companies that received industry ministry subsidies. Of them, 220 answered that they actually used the subsidies for related work such as subtitle creation.

But about 45 pct of the 220 had engaged in content promotion business overseas before they received subsidies, the internal affairs ministry said.

The ministry told the industry ministry to focus its subsidies on new projects instead of supporting existing ones.

The internal affairs ministry also named a cultural exchange project by the education ministry that dispatches Japanese artists overseas.

About three-fourths of the destinations are Europe and Asia, the internal affairs said, calling for diversifying the dispatch areas and taking other measures to improve the project.

The agriculture ministry was told to promote the use of the country's geographical indication, or GI, system for local brand protection. Jiji Press