The Ministry of International Trade and Industry said Friday that it has set up a national forum to nurture Japanese entrepreneurs as part of efforts to revitalize the economy.
Headed by Reona Esaki, a winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, the forum will organize symposiums throughout Japan for two years starting in June, the ministry said. The first symposium will be held in Tokyo.
Local businesspeople and newspapers will be invited to become involved as regional organizers and sponsors of the symposiums so their ideas and experiences can be shared, it said.
The forum will also run a Web site for an exchange of opinions on the subject, it said.
Last year, the government launched various support measures for venture companies, such as programs that extend them unsecured loans. Unlike corporate attitudes in the United States, a negative view toward entrepreneurs remains entrenched in Japan, MITI officials said.
MITI expects the forum to call for drastic reforms in such areas as education and employment to help eliminate Japanese customs and ways of thinking that discourage would-be entrepreneurs from starting venture companies.
"I want to make the forum a movement to spread values that respect entrepreneurs," Sachio Semmoto, one of the forum's chief organizers, told a press conference Friday.
An entrepreneur himself, Semmoto jointly founded DDI Corp. in 1984 with Kyocera Corp. Chairman Kazuo Inamori and became a professor at Keio University's Graduate School of Business Administration in 1996. Last November, he set up an Internet service provider called eAccess Ltd.