Indian restaurants owned by Nepalese must employ 1 Japanese staff:Japan’s latest rule may force 5,000 Indian eateries to close their businesses

The Japanese government has become strict regarding foreign migrants. Due to this, thousands of Indian restaurants with Nepali ownership operating there are facing the threat of closure. The administration has suddenly tightened the ‘Business Management’ visa rules for restaurant owners. Actually, the government suspects that wealthy Chinese investors are creating fake companies to misuse this permit. To prevent this, the minimum capital requirement has been increased directly from 5 million yen (approximately ₹29.82 lakh) to 30 million yen (approximately ₹1.78 crore). Additionally, it has been made mandatory to employ at least one full-time Japanese citizen or permanent resident in every restaurant. This change has resulted in a massive 96% decline in applications. Existing operators have been given only three years to fulfill these conditions. According to experts, this change in regulations will have a very adverse impact on small foreign entrepreneurs doing business in Japan. According to Ministry of Internal Affairs data, less than 9% of local companies in Japan have a capital of 30 million yen (₹1.8 crore). In such circumstances, arranging such a large amount is proving to be absolutely impossible for small-scale Indian curry houses. A 32-year-old restaurant owner Anju Khatri, says, “When even large companies are unable to find local employees, how will we small foreign migrants find them?” The ‘Himalayan Caravan’ restaurant has been running for the past two decades on a quiet street in East Tokyo. Its Nepali owner Sanjay Sahni first came there as a chef in 2006. For him, the regular customers who come here have now become like a large family. This restaurant’s 850 yen curry-naan lunch set is quite popular among office workers, general readers, and elderly people. The excellent taste at a low price draws huge crowds of customers at lunchtime, which is now in great crisis. Foreign cooks and migrant people not only give cultural flavor to Tokyo’s dining scene but also provide affordable food options. If this decision causes Indian, Thai, and Vietnamese restaurants to close down, local workers’ most favorite lunch options will be lost forever. Foreign nationals are only 3% in Japan, but Indian restaurants outnumber even McDonald’s In Japan, only 59,000 Indians live, but there are around 5,000 Indian restaurants present there. This is even more than the total number of outlets of McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food brand operating there. This business has expanded on the strength of small investors alone. The share of foreign citizens in Japan’s population is only 3%. This is much lower than the 15% average of OECD countries. Most of the Indian restaurants operating there are owned and staffed by Nepali migrants, whose total number there is currently around 3 lakh.