Les « visions » du MITI. Ou l'avenir radieux de l'industrie japonaise

The Vision of MITI. The Bright Future of Japanese Industry
Japan has always accorded great importance to long term thinking. Government agencies, in close consultation with the private sector and numerous specialised institutes, build scenarios and ten year visions, which in most cases turned out to be correct.
Guy Faure describes the process of working out these long term visions, recalls the priorities of previous ten year plans and in particular gives an account of the ones adopted in the 1994 study.
Three assumptions underlie this plan… the international environment will remain favourable, deregulation will continue, domestic demand will remain strong. Three major challenges are then defined:
– strengthen Japanese leadership in science and technology and reorient industry towards 12 fields which are deemed especially promising, favourable to improving the quality of life and creating employment;
– favour “soft growth” so as to respond to Japanese aspirations for a better quality of life;
– develop new organizational forms for business, by better reconciling than in the past economic performance and social progress (the Sony model).