14. Can the Economic Partnership Agreements Help the Developed Country with a Decreasing Population?

In Japan, one of the most significant recent topics of discussion with regard to international migration is introducing workers from Indonesia in the field of health-care services. Japan intends to accept 400 nurses and 600 nursing caregivers in the next 2 years—from fiscal 2008 onward. In order to work as health-care professionals in Japan, it is imperative that workers possess the capability of communicating in Japanese as well as medical knowledge and skills. Therefore, it is necessary for Japan to provide these foreign workers sufficient supplementary education and training after they are accepted in the country. Thereafter, it is expected that Indonesian nursing caregivers will be treated almost at par with domestic skilled workers. This new aspect of the Japanese immigration policy is the result of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Japan and Indonesia, which was concluded in 2007. Undoubtedly, the decreasing population in Japan was one of the main motives behind the EPA. Currently, although there exist a large number of illegal unskilled foreign workers in Japan and the younger generation that has failed to occupy permanent jobs, in the long term, securing a sufficient number of workers in order to maintain economic prosperity is also the one of most serious and difficult problems not only for Japan but also for a majority of the developed countries.