In the 2007 White Paper on International Economy and Trade, METI also calls on Japanese companies to invest more in information technology and promote "Japan brands" such as animation and motion pictures.

The report devotes much space to an analysis of the Indian economy, with which Japan has thin relations, and predicts it will emerge as a promising market.

The white paper compares foreign direct investment (FDI) in the service sector by the United States, the EU and Japan to illustrate how much Japan lags in this area.

According to the white paper, 74 per cent of US FDI was in the service sector in 2004, 76 per cent of EU FDI was in the service sector in the same year and 35 per cent of Japanese FDI was in the same sector in 2006.

Of the total direct foreign investment, 80 per cent is accounted for by the combined figure of the finance and insurance industries and the wholesale and retail industries. Other service industries lag far behind.

Taking the hotel industry as an example, the white paper cites the InterContinental Hotels Group of Britain, which operates about 3,700 hotels, including Holiday-Inn and other hotel brands, in about 100 countries and territories.

Japan's Prince Hotels Inc, on the other hand, operates only in three foreign countries and territories, and the number of hotels, including those in Japan, comes to only 60, according to a METI survey.

For the service industry to expand overseas, the white paper points out the need to enhance efficiency and international competitiveness. In concrete terms, it says IT investment has been lopsidedly made in hardware with less emphasis in software.