The positive sides to immigration are enormous, as immigrants would both increase the population and stimulate the economy. If Japanese come into everyday contact with foreigners from childhood, it would also help alleviate Japanese people’s distaste for internationalization. Europe, the U.S. and all the other advanced nations in the world accept immigrants. As the economy grows more globalized, this is not an age when Japan can get along with Japanese people only.
We are making all Japanese staff at our headquarters and all employees at store manager level or higher study English to the point they can get a TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) score of at least 700 points in the next two years. (A perfect score is 990.) The number of our foreign employees is rising, English will be made Fast Retailing’s official language in fiscal 2012, and we are aiming to globalize company management.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100724p2a00m0na003000c.html