Keidanren's Committee on Mobility recently met for the third time. The commitment to creating a future for industry is expanding far beyond the automotive sector.
“We’ve reached the consensus that we need to transcend industry lines and create the future together.”
This is how Chairman Akio Toyoda responded to reporters after the third meeting of Keidanren’s Committee on Mobility, held in Tokyo on October 5.
The Committee on Mobility aims to stimulate growth throughout Japan’s economy by strengthening the global competitiveness of its mobility industry. With members extending far beyond automobiles to logistics, power, and travel sectors, the committee first met in September 2022 and again in February this year.
The inaugural meeting confirmed the mobility industry’s development potential and the challenges to growth. At the second meeting, Toyota Chief Scientist and Executive Fellow Dr. Gill Pratt was invited to provide a deeper understanding of Japan’s unique carbon neutrality pathway.
The third meeting focused mainly on collaboration across different sectors to create the mobility industry’s future.
Hideaki Ibuki, Director-General of the Manufacturing Industries Bureau at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, gave a presentation on “Domestic and International Conditions Affecting the Automotive Industry and the Mobility Industry’s Outlook.” Through the committee’s discussions, members also shared challenges facing the auto industry.
Here is our meeting recap, primarily through the comments of chairmen Masakazu Tokura (Keidanren Chairman, Sumitomo Chemical Chairman of the Board) and Akio Toyoda.
Chairman Tokura: An all-industry effort led by the mobility sector
To begin, Chairman Tokura gave a rundown of the committee’s activities to date. He then shared his anticipation for the upcoming Japan Mobility Show (Tokyo Big Sight, general public days from October 28) and emphasized the mobility industry’s importance.
Chairman Tokura
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the many committee members participating in and sponsoring the Japan Mobility Show, which will be held later this month. With everyone working together, I greatly look forward to this opportunity to show the world a future led by Japanese mobility.
For the Japanese economy to regain its dynamism and maintain a global presence in this post-pandemic era, we need to make bold investments through public-private partnerships in key game-changing business areas, including green and digital transformations, and swiftly revise regulations and systems that are out of step with the times.
The mobility industry, in particular, holds the key to Japan’s future competitiveness due to its potential and ripple effects and as such, is a central pillar of Keidanren’s activities.
Boosting the dynamism and competitiveness of the Japanese economy requires the acceleration of clean energy policies, such as growth-oriented carbon pricing * , along with maintaining and strengthening a free and open international economic order. The mobility sector wants to lead an all-industry effort, and we hope you will support us in this endeavor.
*Carbon pricing is a policy that aims to change the behavior of corporations and other emitters by attaching a price to the carbon (CO2) they emit. Such systems include carbon taxes and emissions trading. Growth-oriented carbon pricing is a scheme that combines regulation with support for advance investment to encourage companies and other organizations to pursue green transformation, reduce emissions, strengthen industrial competitiveness, and generate economic growth.