The Japan Business Council for Trade and Investment Facilitation (JBCTIF) is a business organization comprised of Japanese companies and industry associations that was established in April 1997, with the objective of examining problems relating to international trade and foreign direct investment faced by Japanese companies as well as making recommendations to the Japanese/foreign governments regarding institutional improvements for addressing those problems.

Background
　With the increasing globalization of the world economy, there are many cases where issues relating to the trade and investment institutions of trading partners and host countries have been hampering the business activities of Japanese companies. Japanese companies find it difficult to solve these problems even though they have directly requested the governments of trading partners to make improvements to their systems.
　On the other hand, various activities for trade and investment liberalization and facilitation are being implemented through bilateral negotiations and multilateral negotiations in international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), etc.
　Japanese businesses, on their part, need to work towards the improvement of these trade and investment issues by making maximum use of these opportunities.

Activities of JBCTIF
　It is for this reason that the JBCTIF produces an annual report on "Issues and Requests relating to Foreign Trade and Investment" based on our analysis of the results of a survey on "Problems relating to Trade, Investment and Local Manufacturing in Overseas Countries and Regions" which is conducted by the JBCTIF to its member companies every year. The JBCTIF also makes recommendations to the Japanese government and others on issues that we wish to be included on the agenda of the government negotiations with other countries.
　These recommendations by the JBCTIF are being reflected in bilateral/multilateral negotiations and regional cooperation.