How big is the economy of drones? Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry official explains the current situation in Japan, the United States, and Europe

The industrial use of drones in Japan is preceded by agriculture

Yoichi Iida (hereafter, Iida): Hello. My name is Iida.

Today, I had the opportunity to participate in the International Drone Exhibition. I would like to talk to you about what might happen.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism earlier explained the definition of aircraft under the Civil Aviation Law. Since we are a manufacturing industry, we are implementing regulations that focus on manufacturing in order to ensure the sound development of the domestic aircraft industry.

This is called the Aircraft Manufacturing Business Act. We are certifying that we have adopted a proper manufacturing process to manage the

Regarding the relationship between this law and unmanned aerial vehicles, this is a little different from the Civil Aeronautics Law. are subject to regulation.

However, as I will mention later, as the use of unmanned aerial vehicles has expanded in recent years, the regulation was previously not subject to regulations for those with a total weight of 100 kg or less, but this has recently changed. It is said that the regulation has been relaxed up to 150 kg.

I think that you are mainly proposing regulations that assume the use of fertilizers and pesticides for agricultural use, but in that form, we will be able to We would like to certify the regulations in the direction of industrial use as long as possible, and we would like to review them.

Accordingly, the recent incidents involving drones have been quite small, but as we have written, we are in the aircraft industry, so we are considering how to use unmanned aerial vehicles, including large ones, in society. We will make adjustments from the perspective of whether we will utilize it and whether Japanese industry will gain such profits and grow in the process of promoting it.