Indian IT Engineers are on demand in Japan

Kochi, Mar 15 (UNI) Japanese Ambassador Yasukuni Enoki today said Indian IT engineers were in demand in his country as there is a shortage of computer experts in Japan.

Speaking to mediapersons here, Mr Yasukuni said Japan had relaxed visa restrictions for Indian engineers to attract more IT experts to their country.

''Japan's facing a shortage of IT engineers and India has a surplus of computer experts. The gulf can be bridged by employing more engineers from India'', he said.

Presently, Indian IT majors like Infosys and Wipro have huge presence in Japan, he added.

Rueing over the low tourist traffic between India and Japan, Mr Yasukuni said his country and India should chalk out policies to expose the huge potential in tourism sector in both the countries.

He said both countries had huge potential in terms of natural resources and world heritage sites, but the tourist traffic between the two countries was very low.

''Last year only one lakh tourists from Japan came to India and an abysmal 50,000 Indian tourists visited Japan'', he said.

Mr Yasukuni said both the coutries should draft comprehensive policies to promote tourism in the respective countries.

He said the 'Incredible India' campaign of the Indian government and the 'Visit to Japan' programme of the Japanese government were a bold step in promoting and creating awareness on tourism among the public.

The tourist traffic could touch five lakh by 2015 if innovative campaigns were put in place, he said.

He said the number of direct flights between both the countries would increase in the near future and this would be a catalyst for the tourism sector.

Mr Yasukuni said eventhough Ayurveda was popular in Japan it was expensive and hence efforts should be made to attract more medical tourists to Kerala to experience the traditional medical system.

The Ambassador said the bilateral trade between the countries was very encouraging as last year's trade touched USD ten billion.

He also said India was a politically stable and investor friendly country.

UNI