Growth Investment Guidance

On July 21, 2026, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry compiled and published the Growth Investment Guidance.

Since the 2010s, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has advanced initiatives that contribute to dialogue between companies and investors and to corporate governance reform through efforts such as the Ito Report. The policy for formulating this guidance was explicitly stated in the Comprehensive Economic Measures adopted by the Cabinet on November 21, 2025.

It identifies the relatively low level of growth investment, the insufficient balance between growth investment and shareholder returns according to a company’s growth stage, and the structural retention of capital in value-destroying segments as structural challenges.

It recommends using value creation (EP: Economic Profit) as a common language, improving capital efficiency, and then strategically allocating and expanding capital toward investment opportunities that exceed the cost of capital. It positions wage increases as a policy to strengthen supply capacity and as the starting point of the growth strategy.

It expects companies to build and explain a growth pathway based on their business models, improve profitability by increasing value added, substantially expand growth investment, ensure an appropriate balance between growth investment and shareholder returns, and transform their business portfolios based on the best-owner principle.

It calls on investors to respond according to companies’ growth stages and business characteristics and to exercise substantive voting rights. It calls on the government to pursue initiatives concerning business restructuring, fair market rules, the corporate bond market, risk money, growth areas, critical technologies, and the startup ecosystem.