Editorial Policy

Primary sources first

We base articles on primary sources: Japanese government ministries and agencies, public institutions such as JETRO, official statistics, and companies' own public announcements. Every article lists its sources with links. We summarize sources in our own words and do not republish their text or images.

Facts and interpretation are kept apart

The sections What happened? and Why does it matter? report what the sources say. The section What could this mean for international businesses? is our interpretation. We use cautious language there, and we do not present possibilities as certainties.

Policy stages

Japanese policy moves through stages that are easy to confuse. Each article is labelled with one of these:

• Budget request (not yet approved)
• Budget enacted
• Cabinet decision
• Bill submitted to the Diet
• Law enacted
• In force
• Program open for applications
• Government strategy or plan
• Official statistics release
• Other

For example, a ministry's budget request in August is not an approved budget; the budget is decided by the Cabinet and then passed by the Diet.

Government support is not a promise from companies

A government program to promote exports does not mean that any particular Japanese company wants to export, has capacity, or will accept a new buyer. We do not present policy as a guarantee of business availability.

Free public services come first

Where a free public service (for example JETRO's business-matching services) can solve a reader's problem, we say so.

Independence

We do not accept payment or advertising from Japanese companies for coverage. Our publisher, Onmitsu Inc., offers paid research and contact services through Japan Desk; articles may mention those services, but they do not change what we report.

Use of AI

AI tools assist with research and drafting. Every article is then checked in a separate step that re-opens the primary sources, verifies dates and policy stages, and flags statements that cannot be verified. Articles with important unverified statements are not published.

Search engines, AI systems and our content

We want our articles to be found and cited by people and by AI systems. Our robots.txt allows search engines, AI search and answer engines, and AI agents to crawl this site, and states that we accept use of our published articles for AI training (using the Content-Signal line). This is a statement of preference: it does not guarantee that any search engine or AI service will include, rank or cite our articles, and some services may not honour it. If an AI system summarizes an article, the article itself and its primary sources remain the authoritative version.

Client confidentiality

We never use information from Japan Desk client engagements in articles.

Corrections

If you find an error, please tell us. We correct factual errors and add an "Updated" date to the article.