(Bloomberg) – A Japanese government adviser plans to call for the country to reopen to tourists amid a recent drop in new Covid infections, the Yomiuri newspaper has said, amid calls to ease tough border controls implemented in early 2020.

An unnamed private sector member of the Economic and Fiscal Policy Council, which advises Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, is expected to submit the proposal at a meeting on Wednesday, the Yomiuri reported without saying how he got the information. It was not immediately clear whether the member had the support of other council members.

The report comes as Japan’s hospitality industry has urged the government to reopen to more overseas visitors. Until the pandemic, tourism was a rare bright spot for the Japanese economy, with the number of foreign visitors quintupling between 2011 and 2019. Due to strict border measures, the number of foreign visitors fell from nearly 32 million in 2019 to 250,000 in 2021.

In recent months, Kishida has eased entry restrictions for business travelers and students, and raised the daily cap on international arrivals, amid criticism that Japan’s border measures were excessive. Japan has been spared the worst of the global pandemic over the past two years, with relatively low per capita deaths from Covid.

“We are currently seeing Covid starting to take hold here, and Japanese people have started to travel within the country, so I feel like we are heading towards a gradual easing of border restrictions,” Tomoaki said. Kawasaki, equity analyst at Iwaicosmo Securities. Co.

Countries like South Korea and New Zealand have recently reopened to tourists, although China’s borders are effectively sealed as the country pursues a Covid Zero strategy.

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