I am Akihiro Nikkaku serving as the President of Japan Textile Federation (JTF).

   As the environment surrounding our textile industry has become more confused both at home and abroad, I believe that restructuring and reinforcement of our supply chains as well as appropriate response to global environmental issues including carbon-neutral problems and circular economy are essential for retaining our industrial base.

   Among others, our highest priority issue is to cope with the recent structural labor shortage.  The textile industry was newly added to the “Specified Skilled Workers Program” last September and it became a turning point for our drastic policy change.  We will put our efforts into establishing a proper system in accordance with the Japanese Audit Standard for Textile Industry (JASTI) for compliance with international human rights standards through wider use of the “Guidelines for Responsible Corporate Conduct”, and cooperate with our member organizations in conforming to new systems in anticipation of detailed institutional design of the “Employment for Skill Development Program”.

   As for environmental issues, the word “circular economy” is used as a key word in environmental policies.  While the government has taken actions for institutional development to promote resource recycling, our industry intends to collect the related information both at home and abroad and share such information with our member organizations, in order to properly address the institutional changes.

   The environment surrounding our industry has changed from moment to moment.  We can build a business model based on new standards of value through sharing the value of domestic materials in the entire industry and facilitating creation of new values by adapting to these changes as early as possible.  Therefore, I believe that such efforts lead to creation of an industry that can gain trust from the society, provide workers with satisfaction and become fascinating for many people.

   We will focus our efforts into making the textile industry long-lasting for the future.  Accordingly, we hopefully need your support and cooperation.

Action Policy for Fiscal 2025[pdf]