[Provisional Translation]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 29th meeting of the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation at the Prime Minister's Office.
During the meeting, discussions were held on target areas and the promotion system for the Program to Expand Investment in Research and Development in the Public and Private Sectors, the state of discussion on the Comprehensive Strategy on Science, Technology and Innovation 2017, the evaluation for the research and development (R&D) projects of national importance, and promotion of Society 5.0 and Government R&D investment goals.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said in his address,
"Today, we approved a specific path for the achievement of our goal of bringing the ratio of the Government's R&D investments to GDP to one percent while ensuring the consistency of the investments with the Plan for Economic and Fiscal Revitalization.
I request that the relevant ministers work hard to expand R&D investments in line with the decision today so that we will be able to steadily achieve this goal during the time period of the Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan.

Regarding Government research and development, we have decided the target areas that are expected to be highly effective in generating private sector investment and contribute to making finances more efficient. Next fiscal year, we will steadily advance the Strategic Innovation Creation Program (SIP) and create a new type of promotional expenses to encourage investments in these areas.
Chairman Sakakibara of Keidanren made a strong statement saying that the business world will exert efforts in line with government initiatives and aim to bring the ratio of private sector investments in R&D to GDP to three percent.

The Government and private sector will cooperate in a unified manner to aim to bring Japan's ratio of R&D investment to GDP up to the globally leading level of 4 percent. Through these efforts, we will make Japan an innovation-friendly country with the greatest research environment in the world."