BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test

What's the BJT?

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) is a government-affiliated organization established in 1959 to provide all-round support for the development of Japanese trade. As part of its activities, it runs the BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test ("BJT") to promote the inflow of skilled human resources from overseas. The BJT is presently run in cooperation with the Japan Foundation and Japan Educational Exchanges and Services (which run the Japanese Language Proficiency Test) and the National Institute for Japanese Language, and is supported by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Agency for Cultural Affairs, and Japanese business community.

Target

The BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test is mainly intended for business-related people whose mother tongue is not Japanese and are learning Japanese as a foreign language or the second language.
People who are learning Japanese as a foreign language mean foreign business-related people who work for Japanese companies or foreign students and trainees who wish to work for Japanese companies. People who are learning Japanese as the second language mean Japanese whose mother tongue is not Japanese because they were educated under the elementary and middle education system in foreign countries because of their parent's job, foreigners who are permitted to live in Japan under refugees laws and other reasons, and war-displaced Japanese brought up in China and the similar kind of people who wish to work for Japanese companies in the future.

Purpose

The BJT measures and evaluates "communication skills in Japanese" in various scenes and situation of business, not how much they know about Japanese and business. The specific purposes of the BJT are as follows:

1. to measure the communication skills in Japanese in the ordinary business scenes;
2. to measure the expression skills in Japanese to show their own business knowledge or business strategies;
3. to measure the intercultural adjustment skills in Japanese to act properly in Japanese business and commercial customs; and
4. to contribute to mutual understanding among business-related people, Japanese or foreign, by clearing up misunderstanding and removing barriers in business communication.

Features

• Actual business situations are reflected, as realistically as possible, in the test.
• The test gives priority to measuring and evaluating one's ability to understand and communicate in Japanese encountered in business situations, rather than simply measuring one's knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and business.

Test Implementation

To be fair in the contents and evaluation of the Test, JETRO set up the committees in cooperation with companies, economic and educational organizations and groups, research institutions, the media, and other entities. The BJT is operated under the organized system below:
The Listening and Reading Comprehension Test is offered on the same day in Japan and other countries, under JETRO's worldwide sponsorship and with the co-sponsorship of cooperating test centers.