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Indian-Origin CEO of Japanese Firm Highlights Need for Immigration to Boost Nation’s Growth

The chairman of one of Japan’s most well-known snack firms, who was born in India, has cautioned that in

Indian-Origin CEO of Japanese Firm Highlights Need for Immigration to Boost Nation’s Growth

The chairman of one of Japan’s most well-known snack firms, who was born in India, has cautioned that in order to restore the economy to its former glory, the nation needs to adopt a new perspective and let more immigration.

Since a variety of different plans, including an ultraloose monetary policy and trillions of dollars in stimulus measures, have failed to spark recovery, politicians have been struggling for years to recover from the so-called lost decades.

Lekh Juneja, the CEO of the massive rice cracker company Kameda Seika, expressed concern that his adopted nation has lost its competitive edge as the new government of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba looks for a new way to restore its former dominance in the global IT industry.

“I arrived in Japan forty years ago because it was among the leaders in GDP (gross domestic product)… the country was experiencing a boom,” the biotech scientist shared at Kameda’s headquarters in Niigata, located in Japan’s rice-growing region.

However, “Japan thought ‘we have everything now.'” And I believe that the desire to (have) the courage to go worldwide began to wane.

Kameda’s growth paralleled Japan’s postwar prosperity, resulting in a tenfold increase in income between 1965 and 1974 and the company’s being synonymous with the beloved senbei crackers in the country.

However, China, South Korea, and Silicon Valley in the United States have surpassed the nation that created the Sony Walkman, the bullet train, and Super Mario in terms of technological advancement.

Japanese companies dominated the top 10 global companies by market capitalization in the late 1980s. No one makes the list today.

In the next fifty years, the population is expected to decline by nearly a third due to aging, and businesses are already experiencing difficulties filling open positions.

Despite loosening regulations recently, immigration has not been a major solution for Japan.

Juneja, 72, who first arrived in Japan in 1984 and has held jobs at a pharmaceutical company and a manufacturer of food components, said the nation “has no choice” but to welcome more immigrants.

“It’s not just the figures. It’s also the culture and the way of thinking. We must go worldwide,” he declared.

A new study estimates that by 2040, Japan will need to more than quadruple its foreign labor force to 6.88 million. It is currently on course to fall short by nearly a million.

Since coming on board, Juneja has been working to expand Kameda’s global reach and position it as a “rice innovation company.”

An American and a Vietnamese worker are rolling out dough and experimenting with new recipes and flavors in the product testing facility.

One major obstacle is language. It’s really challenging for them when you bring them to Niigata and they don’t know Japanese,” Juneja remarked.

“That needs to change,” he warned. “We have very limited resources and options if we only hire people who can write and speak Japanese.”

In Japan, few CEOs are foreign-born, and boardrooms are predominantly male.

According to a Kyodo News study conducted in September, 13 of Japan’s 1,600 top-listed companies had female CEOs.

“It’s very rare (for a foreigner) to become a CEO in a Japanese company,” Juneja explained. “But look at the U.S.”

“There is Microsoft, there is Google, all these companies have Indian CEOs,” stated the man.

Japan needs to reform, in my opinion. In Japan, we take pride in our family history. However, I believe that having foreigners and being flexible would be crucial for Japan.

Not every CEO who is not Japanese has had an easy time. The German head of Olympus resigned in November when it was revealed that he had purchased illegal narcotics.

Additionally, Carlos Ghosn, Nissan’s Franco-Lebanese-Brazilian CEO, was detained in 2018 on suspicion of financial malfeasance. Then, partly by hiding in an audio equipment box, he made his getaway.

“He didn’t leave a favorable impression of foreign CEOs here,” Juneja commented. “However, the key difference between him and me is that I hold a Japanese passport.”

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