By John Chan:
9 July 2009
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso appointed two new cabinet ministers on July 1 in the latest move to shore up his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government. With rock-bottom opinion poll ratings and the worst economic slump in more than 60 years, the government is in disarray in the lead up to a general election due to be held before mid-September.
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TOKYO, July 10 (AP) – (Kyodo)—The number of registered foreign residents in Japan hit a record high of 2,217,000 at the end of 2008, marking an increase of around 50 percent in the last decade, a report released by the Justice Ministry said Friday.
The registered foreign population was up 3 percent, or 64,000, from the previous year and accounts for 1.74 percent of Japan’s total population, it said.
Chinese nationals accounted for the largest group of foreign residents at around 30 percent, or 655,000 people, followed by Koreans at 589,000, Brazilians at 313,000, Filipinos at 211,000 and Peruvians at 60,000.
Special permanent residents of Korean ancestry, who numbered 590,000 at the end of 1992, fell to 420,000, down 2.3 percent from the previous year.
Special permanent residence status is granted to people who were forcibly brought to Japan for labor during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula and their descendants.
In contrast, the number of permanent residents increased to 492,000, up 11.9 percent, and that of nonpermanent residents with skilled labor visas rose by 21.6 percent.
Most foreign nationals resided in Tokyo, with 402,000 registered, followed by Aichi and Osaka prefectures.
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