Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the New Year Party by Jiji Press held in Tokyo.

The Prime Minister said in his opening address,

"I was able to attend this New Year Party by Jiji Press as a member of the ruling parties after a long interval.
With your support, we were able to make a comeback in the government last year.
As a result, we have been able to mark the start of the new year as the government and the ruling parties, but at the same time, we have started this new year with grave responsibilities.
We must now achieve results. We would like to put our utmost effort into achieving significant results, rather than giving hundreds of hollow words.

I believe that if many people can spend the year with willingness to put effort in with positive feelings, expecting that this will be a good year, that will lead also to the pickup of both the economy and business.
Above all, the most important mission imposed on us is to revive the economy. I have ordered the Ministry of Finance to compile urgent economic countermeasures by the end of this week, and to formulate a large supplementary budget based on them. The supplementary budget will contribute in the movement to break out of deflation, while at the same time achieving disaster prevention and mitigation, as well as for investment in the future.
In this context, the supplementary budget will contribute to filling the deflationary gap and to overcoming deflation. At the same time, while it is already this time of the year, it should serve as the provisional budget, in this situation where delay in the passage of budget cannot be avoided.
I am thinking to prepare a budget to cover the period of 15 months, so as to supplement such delay.
At any rate, in the course of submitting the budget as promptly as possible, I am putting hope into its early passage, including of course this supplementary budget, and I believe that the earliest possible passage and execution of this supplementary budget should be the largest measure to boost the economy.
Meanwhile, the pillar for the foreign and security policy is the Japan-U.S. alliance.
In order to reinforce the alliance, I am thinking to visit the U.S. at the earliest possible timing this year and hold a summit meeting.
Of course, we must also consider the situation on the U.S. side. The President must attend an inauguration ceremony, and make the annual State of the Union address. There is also the fiscal issue. Therefore, we are currently scheduling the timing in a wide span.
We are currently determined to win the people's trust by building up actual results one by one.
I would like to make this a year when, looking back five or six years from now, we can realize that Japan revived from this year."