スクリプトは事前提出されたものですので、ビデオの音声とは異なる場合があります。

My Solutions for Development of Japan

OSHIRO Dai (Okinawa National College of Technology)

According to a Swiss think-tank, the global competitiveness of Japan is now 27th. Japan has been overtaken by Taiwan, Malaysia, China, and South Korea. The domestic market is diminishing because of the declining birthrate and a growing proportion of elderly people. The only way of prosperity for Japanese companies is to advance overseas. For the improvement in the global competitiveness and sustainable development for Japan, I want to propose three solutions. Let me explain my three ideas.

The first idea is to employ more foreigners. Since last year, major corporations have eagerly been hiring foreigners. Panasonic announced that it would recruit more foreigners than Japanese students and the ratio would be 8:2. I think that the way of acquiring excellent foreigners is an aggressive adoption of international students. There are six international students in Okinawa National College of Technology, and they are all friends of mine. International students are very talented but they all say like this: “the reason why I’m in Japan is that the Japanese government gives me money.” It seems that Japan is not attractive. But I think that the brand of Japanese big corporations is attractive. I have experienced home stay in Malaysia. When I was there, the people said luxury cars are Japanese ones. My host family was rich so they had a Toyota corolla. Besides, all motorbikes were made by Honda. I was able to see many advertisements of Japanese products everywhere in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. It appeared that many people yearned for Japanese companies. If major corporations and colleges of technology cooperate, excellent international students can be educated. As a result, skilled human resources will be available for global corporations.

The second idea is to change young people’s inward point of view to outward point of view one by strengthening their English skills. The gross profit of Samsung has surpassed the total profit of major electric manufactures in Japan. It is said that the strength of Samsung is a prompt decision-making skill, but I think it is surprisingly high individual motivation. I think that major companies in South Korea values TOEIC because they wants to motivate employees and to make them compete with each other. I was surprised to hear that Rakuten announced that their in-house official language would be English. I think that their purpose is to raise awareness as a global corporation. In Malaysia, it is very common to speak three languages: Malay tongue, Chinese, and English. Students were paying attention to foreign countries thinking about where to work after graduation. On the contrary, the Japanese stick to staying in Japan. I'm concerned that Japanese companies will end up fighting over shares in the domestic market.

The last idea for the key to the development of Japan in the future is to be ambitious. I was very disappointed to hear that all friends of mine said stability is the key when seeking employment. Most people in Malaysia had vigorous ambitions. When I was in Malaysia, I was able to go to a local high school. The students were very curious about me because I was a foreigner. They asked many questions in class. They were not afraid of making mistakes. I was surprised that it was a totally opposite atmosphere compared to Japan. On the other hand, in my school, there are very few students who are willing to talk to international students. Japanese students might be shy, and might not be interested in foreigners. In this kind of environment, international awareness dose not grow. Perhaps, it seems that there are few courageous employees who are willing to talk to foreigner employee. It is a pity for them to stay in Japan where working environment is still insufficient. Moreover, many students in Okinawa really want to be public servants. Can you imagine that all students in Japan want to become public servants? I'm very concerned of the future of Japan unless students break their stability-oriented mindset.

Let me conclude my idea. From the point of view of global competitiveness, the keys to the successful development of Japan are to hire skilled foreigners aggressively, raise awareness by using English, break stability-oriented mindset and be ambitious.