Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the second meeting of the Industrial Competitiveness Council at the Prime Minister's Office.

Discussion took place on measures to reduce energy cost, reinforcement of the science and technology innovation promotion system, and increasing exports and strengthening competitiveness in the area of agriculture and other matters.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

"I deeply thank you for the enthusiastic discussion that also took place today on various important policy issues. Hearing the discussion, I would like to set forth the following policy.
First, we would like to securely proceed with the reform of the electric power system for reducing energy cost. Thus, also under coordination with the ruling parties, we would like to compile the policy of reform as the government.
Next, we would like to fundamentally reinforce the function of the Council for Science and Technology Policy as the control tower, towards the realization of an innovation environment at the world's most advanced level. Based on today's discussion, we would like to make the Council able to exert a strong driving power at an unprecedented level in terms of both authority and budget, in order to eliminate the vertically segmented bureaucracy in offices and ministries.
Then, regarding agriculture, we would like to take bold measures beyond the previous ideas from the following two perspectives, including the proposal from Mr. Yoshimasa Hayashi, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
Firstly, we set agriculture as an area of growth and will nurture it as an industry. The keys are the acceleration of the structural reform of agriculture and the increase of the export of agricultural products and foods. There was an announcement from Minister Hayashi that the market for these products will become considerably large in the future. I believe it is important that we change the assumption that agriculture in Japan is not strong enough. Further, because young people will only enter an area in which a new future can be opened with their passion, efforts and hard work in the process, we would like to make agriculture an attractive area in such terms. In doing so, we would like to accelerate cooperation and business collaboration with a wide variety of business types, such as between agriculture and the distribution, IT or financial industries.
There is another point. Agriculture serves multifaceted functions, not only in terms of industry but also in terms of protecting the beautiful homeland of Japan. We would like to respect such function. In order to protect such function, I believe that agriculture itself should become an area with a bright future.
Including the points I mentioned now, we would like to hold the Headquarters for Japan's Economic Revitalization in the near future, make instructions to relevant Cabinet members, and make the government unite its efforts. I would like to ask the members to continuously cooperate for the revival of the Japanese economy."