A new dawn has broken over the land of the rising sun.
Japanese companies, long stereotyped - rightly or wrongly - as parochial and inward-looking, are finally casting their gaze further afield.
Statistics compiled from both Japan's central bank and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) show that total global direct investment by Japanese entities has been rising sharply in the past four years.
The number has more than doubled from 4.94 trillion yen (S$60.6 billion) in 2010 to 13.2 trillion yen last year.
Asia has consistently been a top foreign direct investment destination for Japanese firms, averaging about one-third of total global investment annually in the past four years.
Reflecting that rise in Asia, Japanese investment in Singapore nearly trebled from 128 billion yen in 2012 to 355 billion yen last year. (It had been 332 billion yen in 2010).
BTMU itself is among the Japanese firms flocking here. The bank moved its headquarters for the Asia and Oceania region to Singapore last July.
The Singapore office is one of four regional headquarters that it has set up for its global business.
Underscoring the importance of the Singapore office, BTMU sent one of its high-fliers and favoured sons, Mr Go Watanabe, to head the Asia and Oceania unit here.
The HQ looks after 13 countries comprising South-east Asian nations, India and Australia.
Speaking in the BTMU office in the heart of Singapore's Central Business District last Friday, Mr Watanabe described the Republic as an "ideal place" as a regional base.
"Singapore is a hub for us. It's very easy to move around from Singapore to other Asian countries. It's a very convenient place with capable people and a good working environment."
He pointed out that given Singapore's small domestic market, its high level of connectivity with many other nations via free trade agreements is a major bonus.
He said the Japanese banking giant goes where its customers are.
"The Singapore market itself is already attractive because there are many good Singapore companies here.
"When we look at Singapore as a hub, there are so many opportunities. There are so many other Japanese and non-Japanese companies also setting up regional headquarters in Singapore."
Acknowledging that Japanese firms are somewhat insular, the 55-year-old said things are slowly but surely changing.
"When people see the number of foreigners on Japanese companies' boards, the lack of foreigners could show we are insular.
"At BTMU, we do not have any non-Japanese on the board. I hope in the near future, there will be some non-Japanese on the board." Other than Singapore's push to be a regional hub for the world's multinational companies, a major driving force for Japanese firms going abroad is the economic policies of Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Since sweeping to power with a clear and decisive victory in Japan's 2012 general election, Mr Abe's Liberal Democratic Party-led government has been putting in place economic policies that include getting firms to expand by going into other markets.
Known as Abenomics, the three- pronged approach comprises loose monetary policy, increased fiscal spending and growth-fostering structural reforms.
The policies are aimed at dragging the anaemic Japanese economy out of what is known as the "lost decades", when the country sank into a deflationary funk following the bursting of the asset bubble in the 1990s.
Mr Watanabe said Mr Abe's policies have been helpful for Japanese companies, including BTMU, helping to cut down bureaucratic red tape and weeding out inefficient practices like wage stickiness.
"It's not that easy for Japan to recover or get out of that lengthy deflation of some 20 years. But we Japanese think Abenomics represents the last-ditch effort for Japan to get out of deflation."
The jet-setting career banker, who has been with the same company since graduating from Waseda University in 1982, spends on average just about one day a week in Singapore.
It is all a part of his "localisation" strategy, where he works the ground in each of the 13 markets under his care.
Admitting to bouts of dislocation, where he can wake up some days and not remember which country he is in, Mr Watanabe noted that that is a small price to pay to boost the unit's bottom line.
What's unforgettable for him is the global financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
"The market was so fractured, it felt to me like we were standing on the floor at one point and suddenly there was no floor for us to balance on, we were falling. Many people, including our customers, were scared.
"But we believed we have a commitment to the customers and we made the best effort to provide our service."
This article was first published on June 8, 2014.
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