Act on the Promotion of Ensuring National Security through Integrated Implementation of Economic Measures

Promulgated 18 May 2022, the Economic Security Promotion Act creates four regimes, of which the first governs strategic materials: Chapter 2 establishes the framework for securing the stable supply of specified critical materials (特定重要物資), running from a basic policy for stable-supply assurance through company-level supply-assurance plans (供給確保計画) to special measures under the Japan Finance Corporation Act, the Small and Medium Business Investment & Consultation Companies Act and the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Credit Insurance Act, plus support delivered through designated stable-supply-assurance support corporations. The remaining chapters cover essential infrastructure services, development support for specified critical technologies, and non-disclosure of patent applications. The Act itself designates no material: which goods become specified critical materials is set by Cabinet Order under this framework.

The statutory basis for the Japanese instruments already coded here — JOGMEC's rare-earth investments sit inside a legal architecture this Act created, and reading them without it makes them look like discrete commercial decisions rather than the operation of a designation-and-support regime. The Act is also the clearest case in this tranche of the pattern the whole framework layer shows: the material scope of Japanese policy is not in the statute but in the subordinate designation, so a database that only coded named-material instruments would miss where the authority actually comes from.