London has overtaken New York to be ranked first in the Global Power City Index (GPCI) after significantly raising its scores for the various GPCI indicators on the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics. Tokyo, which is now ranked fourth, should take advantage of its hosting of the 2020 Olympic Games to make it the most attractive and competitive city in the world. Already suffering from a declining population and low economic growth, Japan cannot afford to deny the overconcentration of its population in Tokyo. Rather, it is necessary to adopt a policy to increase the global competitiveness of Tokyo and other large cities as much as possible in order to help Japan grow.

Much of Japan’s road infrastructure, including the Tokyo Expressway, was constructed between 1955 and 1964, the year of the Tokyo Olympics. This infrastructure is now aging rapidly. If the only funding available to update this aging infrastructure is public funding, the nation’s finances will collapse. It is necessary to make a conceptual shift from “social infrastructure subsidized by taxes” to “transportation infrastructure independent of public financing.”

In school textbooks used when I was a student, the Port of Kobe and the Port of Yokohama were depicted as ports of a leading maritime nation. In today’s fiercely competitive international marine transportation industry, however, Japan is on the decline. This is almost unbearable to watch. While the ports of Hong Kong, Busan, and Singapore have maintained their competitiveness, all Japanese ports have lost theirs. This is attributable to a national policy failure. It is hoped that maximum efforts will be made to enhance the competitiveness of marine infrastructure with the aim of restoring Japan’s status as a maritime nation.

The Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow into the largest aviation market worldwide in 2025. The capacity of airports in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which was a bottleneck in Japan’s aviation policy for many years, has been significantly expanded, with the number of departures and arrivals at Haneda now 447,000 per year and at Narita 300,000 per year. The Japanese aviation policy, which currently emphasizes the balanced development of national land under the condition of capacity constraints, should be drastically shifted toward a competitive policy with emphasis on enhancing international competitiveness.

The world’s space industry has a huge market that was worth $304.3 billion in 2012. For many years, Western countries have worked to “industrialize” the field of space exploration, and using its low costs as a weapon, China is catching up. On the other hand, Japan’s space industry has generated sales of just 260 billion yen and exports of only 17 billion yen. This is because Japan’s space policy has hitherto focused on research. Government policy on space needs to adopt an attitude of making space a competitive industry.

2013 was a year in which worldwide interest in Japanese culture grew as UNESCO designated Mount Fuji as a World Heritage site and added washoku (Japanese cuisine) to its World’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. When considering a nation’s “national power,” soft power, which includes things like cultural influence, is incredibly important. Boosting a nation’s cultural influence not only enriches the lives of individuals, but also benefits the country politically. We want the appeal of Japan’s traditional culture to be broadened and Japan to be turned into a cultural superpower.

It is widely known that all the innovations that have emerged in the U.S., such as the Internet and GPS, have come out of government projects, particularly long-term, strategic, high-risk/high-return military projects. If Japan, an island country that lacks resources, is to remain one of the world’s top nations, the national government will need to have a solid strategy for establishing the country as a science and technology powerhouse and serve as the driving force for innovation.

The holding of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games is sure to invigorate the sporting world in Japan in the future. Not only do sports make people healthier and allow them to experience emotion, they also benefit the nation directly through job creation in related industries and in foreign diplomacy and international exchange. The issue is how to ensure that the Games do not end with the closing ceremonies, but ensure that even after they are over and sports in Japan continue to be rejuvenated.

The world is in an era of Schumpetarian competition. With its population declining, Japan’s survival hinges on innovations to increase added value. It goes without saying that the source of innovation is people. Japan’s rapid economic growth in the wake of World War II was achieved thanks to innovators such as Honda’s Soichiro Honda and Sony’s Masaru Ibuka. It is therefore essential to nurture innovators from a long-term perspective.

In Japan, the skills of working adults are normally improved through OJT, for example. Compared with other advanced countries, the proportion of working adults making use of institutions of higher education such as universities and graduate schools is extremely small. The potential demand for graduate schools that offer practical education to working adults is large. The number of graduate schools providing opportunities for professional education in various fields needs to be increased, and doing so would also help make Japan more competitive.