By Anton Bridge
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a public push to woo foreign investment on Wednesday, pledging further capital market reforms and promoting asset management in a speech to hundreds of global investors in Tokyo.
His appearance at a conference held by Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley was another example of Japan's effort to shed a long-held image of being unwelcoming to foreign investors.
For the first time in decades, the world's fourth-largest economy is seen as an increasingly attractive market for global investors. Japan is emerging from years of deflation and its efforts to improve corporate profits and governance are bearing fruit.
The benchmark Nikkei share average shattered its all-time high this year - a once unthinkable feat - and has been climbing since. Given the country's shrinking population, the government wants to capitalise on the wave of interest and turn itself into a global hub for the asset management industry.
"This administration is committed to furthering financial, capital market reform," Kishida said. "We are making the promotion of asset management one of our key pillars."
Attracting foreign asset managers is seen as crucial to shift the country's roughly $13 trillion of household financial assets - much of it stuck in cash and lying dormant in bank accounts - into more productive investments.
As part of that, the government plans to establish special business zones for asset management firms to make it easier for them to set up in Japan and conduct business in English.
So far, Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka and Sapporo have submitted proposals for the zones.
Kishida told investors there would be an announcement about the government's package on the zones in June.
"The asset management industry in Japan is too fragmented", said the chief executive officer for Asia at Morgan Stanley, Gokul Laroia in an interview with Reuters.
"Consolidation of the industry, coupled with the macro tailwind is what’s going to drive it forward,” Laroia said.
Spurred on by the government's reforms, Japan's largest banks have rushed to beef up their own asset management businesses.
Japan's largest lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (NYSE:MUFG), which has a long-standing strategic alliance with Morgan Stanley, has said it will reallocate resources to double assets under management by 2030. MUFG owns around 23% of Morgan Stanley as of March 2023, according to LSEG data.
Rival Sumitomo Mitsui (NYSE:SMFG) Financial Group said it planned to shift personnel to asset management from other business lines.