Hello and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Edwin Lane and today

we're looking at the issue of immigration in the world's third largest economy, Japan. For decades,

Japan has closed its doors to immigrants, but with its population shrinking, is that about to change?

Japan has opened up the high-skilled workers significantly.

And we hear the story of Chinese migrant workers in Japan fighting to get paid.

He said, I'm really sorry, but we don't have money to pay you.

Business Daily, in Japan, here on the BBC World Service.

Immigration is a hot topic these days around the world.

In Europe, flows of migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa

have prompted calls for an end to open-door immigration policies and arise in nationalist

sentiment. In the U.S., President Trump has targeted illegal immigrants, issued travel bans,

and promised to strengthen national borders. But in Japan, the debate is very different.

Every year, it lets in a fraction of the number of immigrants taken by other developed countries.

And that's a problem for the Japanese businesses facing a shortage of workers.

So instead, some Japanese businesses have been making use of a loophole that allows them to bring in cheap labour from abroad

without breaching the strict policy on immigration. And there are concerns that this is leaving some migrant workers open to exploitation.

We've come about two hours out of Tokyo by bullet train to a city called Gifu,

and we're now heading out into what looks like the suburbs of this big sprawling city.

Around me are some high-rise blocks and a lot of low-rise houses.

Hi.

Adigua-gizamas.

In a cramped apartment above an office in the industrial city of Gifu, I meet Yu Hong-Ju.

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