Japan External Trade Organization is an independent government agency established by Japan Export Trade Research Organization as a nonprofit corporation in Osaka in February 1951, and reorganized as the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1958 (later Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry or METI) to consolidate Japan's efforts in export promotion.
The government has provided more than half of JETRO's annual operating budget. As of 1989, JETRO maintained seventy-eight offices in fifty-seven countries, as well as thirty offices in Japan, with a total staff of 1,200.