Japan is moving toward abolishing its loss-making Cool Japan Fund, while seeking to expand a separate program to promote Japanese content overseas.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) plans to omit funding for the public-private fund from its fiscal 2027 Fiscal Investment and Loan Program request, media reports said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Established in 2013 under then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Cool Japan Fund was intended to help Japanese content, food and other products reach overseas markets. It received capital from the government and private-sector shareholders, which it used to invest in various companies and projects.<\/p>\n
Yet the fund struggled from the outset amid criticism that it lacked the expertise needed to identify viable investments, with money poured into companies unrelated to content creation.<\/p>\n
Among its biggest failures was a roughly \u00a514 billion ($88 million) investment in biomaterials startup Spiber that failed to achieve commercial viability and entered into private restructuring after becoming insolvent.<\/p>\n
By the end of fiscal 2025, the fund\u2019s accumulated losses had reached approximately \u00a554 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrimary responsibility for managing the Cool Japan Fund \u2026 rests with its executives,\u201d industry minister Ryosei Akazawa said at a news conference in June, adding that METI also bore responsibility as its supervisor.<\/p>\n
An expert panel launched last month is considering whether to dismantle the fund or integrate it with other institutions, with a decision expected by the end of the year. If dissolved, some of the government\u2019s capital may not be recovered.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, METI is expanding support for creative industries through its IP360 grant-based program, whose first application rounds opened in March.<\/p>\n
Backed by \u00a535 billion from the fiscal 2025 supplementary budget, IP360 provides project-based subsidies for the development and overseas expansion of Japanese content, rather than taking equity stakes in businesses.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Boas, a government-appointed Cool Japan producer and Tokyo-based cultural consultant, said the fund\u2019s shortcomings weren\u2019t due to the world losing interest in Japan, but came \u201cbecause it never developed a disciplined way to serve that demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that sense, he believes the new IP360 project shows more promise as the government is actively learning from its past mistakes.<\/p>\n
Boas said IP360\u2019s credibility will ultimately depend on realized results, transparent selection\u00a0and whether lessons from the fund\u2019s failures are genuinely incorporated before another centralized support structure is built.<\/p>\n
The ministry aims to raise overseas sales of Japanese content to \u00a520 trillion by 2033.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan is moving toward abolishing its loss-making Cool Japan Fund, while seeking to expand a separate program to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36306,8,6643,33,1953],"class_list":["post-77859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-cool-japan","tag-japan","tag-meti","tag-nihon","tag-ryosei-akazawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}