TOKYO: Local governments in Japan are accelerating efforts to scrap the use of “hanko” seals in line with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s focus on digitalizing administrative procedures.

A number of local heads have expressed their backing for the initiative by the Suga administration, which was inaugurated about a month ago. Meanwhile, leaders of communities hosting hanko manufacturers are increasingly frustrated at the trend, saying that seals should not be viewed as a symbolic obstacle to digitalization.

As of the end of September, the city government of Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, made hanko use unnecessary for some 3,800 types of administrative procedure documents.

With its mayor, Soichiro Takashima, spearheading the reform efforts, the city, as of the March 2020 end of fiscal 2019, processed 73.7 percent of its administrative work online and abolished the obligation to put a seal on documents other than for some 900 types for which hanko use is required under rules by the central or Fukuoka prefectural governments.

A corporate employee in her 30s who visited the office of the city’s Chuo Ward called the moves “helpful,” as she had to revisit the office before as she forgot to bring her hanko.

A Fukuoka city government official predicted that online administrative procedures “will become a trend among all local governments in Japan amid the novel coronavirus epidemic.”

On Thursday, the Tokyo metropolitan assembly approved a revision of an ordinance for promoting the digitalization of administrative procedures. The metropolitan government plans to allow residents of the Japanese capital to submit applications online for all procedures under its jurisdiction.

The Tokyo government plans to eliminate soon the use of hanko it now seeks customarily while trying to abolish it by the end of fiscal 2020 for documents currently requiring seals.

In late August, the prefectural government of Aichi, central Japan, started checking its administrative procedures toward scrapping the use of hanko. It will accelerate the work based on the central government’s policy.

“Administrative procedures can basically be done without seals,” Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura said.

On Oct. 1, the city government of Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, northeastern Japan, established the new post of “chief digital officer,” aiming to resolve issues facing the city through digitalization. NTT Data Corp. President Yo Honma, a native of Sakata, was appointed the first CDO.

Meanwhile, Kotaro Nagasaki, governor of the central prefecture of Yamanashi, a major hanko-producing area, urged the central government not to seek to abolish hanko easily.

While showing understanding for the efforts to do away with hanko in administrative procedures, Nagasaki is set to call on the state government to come up with measures to help the hanko industry survive, including digitizing seals and developing new markets such as other Asian countries.

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JIJI Press