With the Meiji Restoration, Japan received assistance from European powers and the US to foster industrialization. The era of centuries of isolation came to an end. There were cooperation and investment between Japan and the rest of the world. This cooperation led to academic-scientific exchanges, scholars and scientists learned from the other cultures in order to embrace elements of Modernity. Since Japan is an island with relative few raw materials, they concentrated on the sectors of production that involve the transformation of natural resources and providing later on multiple kinds of services. This went on a mass scale that positions Japan economically by the 1900s.
Some of the major factors leading to economic success:
The rapid and effective appropriation of Western techniques in industrial production.
The Meiji administration constructed national railroad systems, enhanced existing roads, and inaugurated land reforms and invested in communications industries.
Japan concentrated efforts in specific industries such as shipyards, iron smelters, and spinning mills, which were then sold to highly skilled entrepreneurs.