Japan’s top business lobby calls for further easing of border controls

The head of Japan’s largest business lobby suggested Monday that the country’s border controls aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus are not based on solid epidemiological grounds and called on the government to further ease them by simplifying immigration procedures.

Masakazu Tokura — who leads the Japan Business Federation, also known as Keidanren — said at a news conference that the government’s decision to raise the cap on the daily number of entrants starting next month, from the current 3,500 to 5,000, is not enough.

Tokura said he believes the real reasons for the lack of easing are complicated immigration and tracing procedures for people entering Japan. To solve what he sees as a bottleneck, the chairman of the lobby requested that the government use more digital technology.

However, he said the decision last week was the “first step in paving a way toward allowing people to travel internationally.”

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday his government will relax Japan’s border controls from March, following criticism from business and academic circles at home and abroad.

Within the new daily cap, foreign nationals will be able to newly enter the country for purposes other than tourism.

Tokyo and many other areas remain under a quasi-state of emergency, which allows prefectural governors to ask restaurants and bars to close early and stop serving alcohol.

But some health experts have begun saying that the latest resurgence of infections, driven by the omicron variant, has likely peaked after lasting for more than a month.

Tokura, also chairman of Sumitomo Chemical Co., questioned the need to continue limiting social and economic activities, and said it is necessary to draw up an exit strategy from the current sixth wave of infections.

“There should be discussions as fast as possible about what it should be like” once the coronavirus is endemic and there is no longer a pandemic, he said.