The government, which is trying to reduce Japan's reputation as a country closed to outsiders, cast the plans as a way to encourage educated professionals to emigrate.

'Considering Japanese language skills means the government is easing immigration policy, not tightening policy,' Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told reporters.

He said the government is looking to submit bills on the new rules next year.

Business lobbies have asked the government to expand the immigration quota to ease a feared labour shortage in Japan, whose population is declining as fewer people have children.

But Japan, where most people see the country as ethnically homoegeneous, has long rejected wide-scale immigration.

Under the new programme, foreigners - particularly professionals such as flight attendants and interpreters - would be given visas for longer periods if they prove proficiency in Japanese, a foreign ministry official said.

Their language abilities could also lower the requirements in terms of how much previous professional experience they need to be granted residency, the official said on condition of anonymity.

'We would like them to have a kind of willingness to learn Japanese in order to adapt to the way of Japan smoothly,' he said.

'Our intention is to have more foreign nationals come to Japan.'

Japan now officially bans immigration of unskilled workers except for people of Japanese descent.

Many immigrants of Japanese descent, particularly Brazilians, work here as manual labourers at places like car assembly factories.

But a growing number of companies have used a loophole under which people from developing countries can come for 'training' to Japan. A record 93,000 foreign trainees entered Japan in 2006. -- AFP