Japan has almost no natural resources yet, is huge when it comes to human resources.

​

Being categorized as a nation with almost no natural resources Japan faced a great shortage of oil, natural gas, coal, iron and copper. The country has a lack of fossil fuel resources and a small oil fields in the northern Honshu and Hokkaido areas that supply less than 1% of the country's oil. As a result of this scarcity, Japan has been considered as the world's largest importer of coal, liquefied natural gas and oil. The late discovery of the two huge potential areas rich in natural resources situated in Japan however, played an important role in changing this condition.

The two areas entailed the oceans surrounding the country’s group of islands and forests covering large portions of its land but have yet remained unused.

Japan maintains major coastal waters, which provide the country with fish and other

Under water creatures.

Uninterruptedly, Japan’s citizen’s demand for fish went increasingly high it tends to be imported from abroad. Although Japan has a small amount of arable land, it owns some of the highest crop yields in the world that produces over 60% of its own food each year. In addition, it has sufficient supplies of gold, silver and magnesium. Nevertheless, Japan had to import many essential minerals regarding its booming electronics industry, such as iron ore and copper. Due to the lack of coal, natural gas and oil, Japan used its plenty supply of water as a source of power.

The approval of a New national energy strategy is an upgrading step towards supporting natural resources in Japan, it includes complete methods to secure essential natural resources. “One important goal is to strengthen Japan's overall relationship with oil producing countries. We are seeking to bring the oil volume ratio on exploration and development by Japanese companies to 40% by 2030. I plan to draw on my background in developing bilateral and multilateral trade and economic cooperation agreements to help realize these targets.” said Mr. Yushiwaki Iwai, General Director of Natural Resources and Fuel Department, Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry.

To achieve this plan successfully, Japan should dynamically expand their oil and energy supply sources from the Middle East, Africa, South America, United States, Canada, Australia and Russia. Furthermore, Japan must also intensify economic relationships through collaboration of energy and resources sector and also through dealing with critical issues such as social organization. Another step towards achieving this goal is Japan hoping to intentionally use overseas development assistance and promote meeting level diplomacy that addresses these issues.

Along from Japan’s natural resources comes their human resources, during the successful three decades 1960-1980 the pledge of Japanese companies was the ‘people oriented’ HRM systems. This system caused major stress on college and school employees for a prolonged period of time Yet, on the other hand, they receive unceasing motivations to work seriously. In Japan, Employers invest in training and educating employees, as well as provide them with company housing, parties and sporting events, tours to domestic or overseas resort locations. Introducing superiority while paying wages made the idea of having a good orienting system for three successful decades doubtful and unclear. Employees who are not responsible for the supervisory positions were principally paid overtime premiums, and others were paid depending on the ability of performing their jobs Therefore, all employees are evaluated and ranked each year. Although the incentive system of Japanese firms in1960-1980 was apparently successful in terms of the ability oriented system. However, the system was actually based on seniority.