This news item is by no means limited to Kumamoto but I’m sure it will be of interest to many of the expats who read this page. The image you see is from a pdf document that can be found at the following URL:
https://www.nenkin.go.jp/international/english/index.files/leaflet.pdf
I learned about the change (and URL for the pdf) at Debito.org:
Good news: Japan’s National Pension scheme lowers minimum qualification time from 25 years to 10! http://www.debito.org/?p=14704
Some readers of this page may find Debito.org to be a bit too polemical and political for their tastes but activist / author/ blogger Arudo Debito does a good job of pulling together information that should be of interest to many expats living in Japan. I think this is one such example of why Debito’s page is valuable to expats. I looked for information on this issue on the internet but, aside from Debito’s post, could not find a news article about this 25 to 10 year change for foreigners. Perhaps it’s been covered but after numerous searches I was only able to come up with this article from February:
Japan’s pension payments system set for overhaul https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/03/national/japans-pension-payments-system-set-overhaul/
I assume that this change is part of the overhaul referred to in the title but the article doesn’t seem to mention it explicitly. So, kudos to Debito for getting the word out on an important change that other news outlets seem to have missed.
– KIrk