Reshaping Japan with Electronic Government

Kazuo FURUKAWA Vice Chairman, Nippon Keidanren President, Hitachi, Ltd.

The move to electronic government is accelerating worldwide, especially in industrially advanced countries. Implementation of e-government should be seen not merely as the application of the benefits of IT to government administrative agencies but even more as a job that, utilizing the benefits of e-government as an important lever, restructures and upgrades the social affluence and national competitiveness. Considering the issues currently faced by Japan's economic community, the need to speed up e-government, starting with the basics, and with close cooperation between the public and private sectors, has never been more urgent. This task must be pursued with emphasis on the following three points.

The first is building "national competitiveness" in an ever more competitive world. The only way to make Japan an attractive place for companies to invest is to improve governmental and administrative competitiveness in terms of efficiency and convenience. While e-government is a key element in achieving this improvement, Japan cannot be satisfied with taking a narrow domestic perspective but must seek internationally accepted benchmarks.

The second is achieving economic and social abundance against the backdrop of an aging population and limited resources. The role of e-government is to provide a platform for offering services from the viewpoint of the country's citizens -- the people who use the services and pay for them with their taxes. In advanced e-government countries, the availability of one-stop government services related to major life events like moving or having a baby is today taken for granted. The provision of such services is an indispensable step in dealing with the pressing issue of restoring confidence in the government.

The third is ensuring "visibility" by increasing the transparency of the government and administrative agencies. Improving transparency breaks down the one-way dependency of people on the government and local governments on the central government, and by this, generates fresh economic vigor through interactive tension. Moreover, as a mature democratic nation, and with the concurrence of the people, Japan will need to consider rebuilding its identification registration system to match the realities of the electronic society, so that all individuals, companies and other elements of society can enjoy suitable services and verify the fulfillment of their responsibilities knowing that their privacy is protected.

Moving forward with e-government is thus a mid-to-long term process of continually asking how best to reshape the country. It of course requires strong political leadership but is also an endeavor that needs the wholehearted participation of companies and individuals in their role as independent economic entities.