Economy Ministry Aims To Boost Japan’s Content Industry; Study Group Eyes Ways To Improve Competitiveness

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:13 JST, November 7, 2024

The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry held the first meeting of its study group for the entertainment and creative content industry on Wednesday.

Promoting the content industry, which includes anime and video games, is the purpose of the study group. By next spring, the group will draw up an action plan for the public and private sectors to make the industry more competitive in the global market.

The group’s seven steering committee members, among them a university professor and executives of a publisher and a game company, participated in the meeting. The group will keep abreast of progress in digitization and back the industry’s overseas expansion by increasing its productivity. The group will also discuss policies for increasing the incomes of creators in the content industry.

“The content industry has big potential, yet it also faces many challenges, such as overseas expansion and digitization,” said Ichiya Nakamura, chair of the steering committee, at the meeting. Nakamura is the president of the Professional University of Information and Management for Innovation.

According to the ministry, overseas sales of Japan’s content industry are about ¥5 trillion, which is comparable to export figures of steel and semiconductors. On the other hand, annual incomes of people working in the content industry, except for video games, are below average, which is one of the problems inherent to the industry. The ministry will also create an environment in which creators can work without undue worries by improving profitability of the industry as a whole.

Additionally, to maintain bookstores, which are important distribution hubs for manga, the action plan will include specific measures for increasing visitors to the stores and reducing the rate of books returned from stores to publishers.