With the aim of countering terror and impersonation attempts, Japan's Foreign Ministry will follow European countries in introducing a passport with a hard plastic page containing identity information, an official of the ministry said on Saturday.The ministry aims to add the new security feature in the fiscal year starting April 2023, the official said, reports The South China Morning Post.The newspaper notes that experts have been reviewing ways to improve passport security for the ministry since 2014.The ministry has decided to centralise passport issuance which is currently conducted by each prefecture and requested around 300 million yen (US$3 million) from the fiscal 2017 budget to develop a new issuance system for the National Printing Bureau.Centralised passport printing is recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.The ministry changes passport designs every five to eight years to keep security features up to date. The next design change scheduled in the fiscal year from April 2019 will not include the hard plastic page, a feature already introduced in such countries as Germany and the Netherlands.

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