Thirty years ago the "Japan Inc." partnership between government and industry created an economic powerhouse. Today, those same players are actively blocking innovators in Japan from creating similar success in the fast-growing, new digital economy.
According to allegations in a case to be decided March 30, 2010 by the Tokyo District Court, government bureaucrats have engaged in seemingly corrupt practices to keep up-and-coming ecommerce companies from challenging fossilized brick-and-mortar incumbents.
The situation involves Kenko.com, a company I profiled on my blog earlier this year.
Today at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, Kenko.com CEO Genri Goto spoke about the case. "Is Japan going to build a new global future in the digital economy? Are we going to create a new wave of great companies? Or will this country just keep going down and down? Is Japan going to suffocate its own children just to prevent change? That’s what this is about!"
Please check out more details about this in a story I wrote about this today in the Huffington Post.
Comments (on the Huffington Post site) and tweets pointing to it appreciated.
FCCJ photo
