BACK GROUND&HISTORY

 Japan has been successful in strengthening competitiveness in hardware sectors such as PCs, PC device game machines, electric devices although their software and contents sectors have been relatively less competitive except in some categories. Traditionally, the software and contents sectors were placed under the laissez-faire policy by the Japanese government. Some researches have pointed this out as Japan's unique policy.
Many countries, states and regions, particularly the European states, have traditionally been engaged in protecting and promoting their media contents industries such as film and TV industries with the cooperation of public and private sectors. Japan has been impressed with South Korea who was successful in drastically expanding their film markets by their government's strategic policy since the Asian financial crisis in 1998.
In an environment where severe competitions exist in the global market, Japan has also become aware of the importance of the contents sector. The Government of Japan had set up the Intellectual Property Strategic Headquarters in the Cabinet Office in 2003 in order to plan strategies across ministries. This institution had made an important decision which was expressed in the statement of their strategy plan. They decided and announced the support for the establishment of a private organization similar to AFI in U.S. and UKFC in U.K. (Chapter4, 4,(3) p110. in IP Strategic Program 2004 )

 All throughout the period before and after the strategic decision was made in the public sector, Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) has been taking leadership in the private sector. They proposed and took action for the cooperation of Film, TV, Animation, Game, Music companies and associations to establish a new organization for cross-industries promotion. Thanks to strategic decision made by the government and the leadership of Japan Business Federation, our organization is now taking off.