Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the third meeting of the Ministerial Council on the Promotion of Japan as a Tourism-Oriented Country at the Prime Minister's Office.

During the meeting, an exchange of views took place following a discussion on "the current tourism situation" and "the way forward."

The Prime Minister said in his opening address,

"The promotion of Japan as a tourism-oriented country is an important growth strategy of my Cabinet.
As a result of taking a whole-of-government approach to the implementation of the Action Program toward the Realization of Japan as a Tourism-Oriented Country, the number of annual international visitors to Japan reached 10 million people for the first time in history in 2013.
At the same time, we cannot become complacent over this number. Japan has obtained the excellent opportunity of hosting the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Tokyo Games.
Using this as a source of momentum, we will work to achieve the lofty target of 20 million international visitors by 2020.
To this end, I would like to ask Cabinet members to pool all their ideas to thoroughly identify regulations that are inconvenient and act as impediments to international visitors.
I ask for your cooperation in swiftly carrying out whatever can be done and revising the existing Action Program towards making a Government-wide effort to speed up the realization of Japan as a tourism-oriented country."