Since enunciating the Fukuda Doctrine in 1977, the Japanese government has emphasized the importance of closer ties with Asia and ASEAN. About 60% of Japan's bilateral official development assistance goes to help build infrastructure and cultivate human resources in countries of Asia.
Japanese private-sector companies have been active in Asian nations, too, supporting development through trade, investment, and technology transfers. Their activity has generated employment, cultivated human resources, upgraded industry, and fostered small and medium-sized enterprises in supporting industries.
Joint work by Japan's public and private sectors remains crucial to the nation's development assistance for other countries and thus to economic development in the Asia-Pacific region. That assistance also should encompass joint work with third countries in support of regional development.
An especially important issue that regional cooperation must address is the need for safeguarding the environment. That need, which has become acute in the Asia-Pacific region on account of rapid economic growth there, transcends national borders. It calls for vigorous action by the public and private sectors in all the APEC nations.
Keidanren issued its Global Environmental Charter in 1991 and provided guidelines to companies in fulfilling their global corporate citizenship in regard to the environment. The guidelines call for the respective companies to take up the initiative on behalf of protecting the global environment and improving the local environment.
Japanese companies possess a great deal of technology and know-how in regard to environmental protection. They need to share that technology and know-how actively with their host countries and put it to work on behalf of the environment in those countries. The companies should comply, at least, with local environmental regulations, and where host countries' regulations are less rigorous than Japan's, they should abide by more-stringent standards than local regulations require.
Another kind of cooperation where Japan needs to take the initiative is in opening its markets further to Asia-Pacific nations. Japan, which has the second largest economy in the world, should absorb larger volumes of manufactured imports from those countries than it does now. To promote imports, Japan should accelerate its implementation of the tariff reductions to which it committed itself in the GATT agreement. It also should press ahead with deregulation in line with a policy of making unregulated commerce the rule and regulations the exception.
Japan must take the lead in shaping an open and transparent marketplace in the Asia-Pacific region. Deregulation is especially important. It will stimulate competition. It will help correct price differentials between Japan and other countries and broaden the range of consumer choice in products and services. In those and other ways, deregulation will contribute to more-satisfying lives for Japanese and also will spawn new business opportunities. And by increasing the transparency of business dealings, it will help integrate Japan more completely into the international community.