Govt to Support Revitalizing Local Bookstores; Ministers See Them as Key to National Culture, Regional Revitalization

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:47 JST, February 21, 2025

Japan’s government plans to focus attention on efforts to revitalize brick-and-mortar bookstores, which have been disappearing from municipalities across the country. It will do this by such means as helping them to digitalize their operations, the nation’s industry minister said Thursday.

“About one-fourth of all municipalities [in Japan] have no bookstores. The reasons for this include people losing interest in reading and the spread of online book sales,” Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yoji Muto said at a meeting of the House of Representatives Budget Committee on Thursday, expressing his sense of urgency about the situation. Muto positioned bookstores as places within communities where people can encounter many kinds of information. “Reading books allows people to learn about various value systems, which helps them develop their own creativity,” he said. He stressed the importance of bookstores as places that offer people opportunities to read.

Also during the committee meeting, Liberal Democratic Party member Hiroo Kotera spoke up to suggest that assistance for bookstores should be positioned as part of regional revitalization efforts. He mentioned programs that have already been implemented such as a prefectural library making a general rule of buying its books from local bookstores, helping both the library and bookstores to keep themselves afloat, and the use of a regional revitalization promotion subsidy to support local bookstores. “Bookstores are cultural centers for local communities. Protecting bookstores means protecting Japanese culture,” Kotera said.

Kazuaki Omori, deputy director general at the regional revitalization promotion office of the Cabinet Office, responded to Kotera, saying: “Revitalizing local bookstores is also important for regional revitalization. We would like to support clever, original plans by various municipalities going forward.”