Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the first general meeting of the 31st Local Government System Research Council held at the Prime Minister's Office.
During the meeting, a Chair and Vice-chair were elected, and discussion took place on the management of the Council.
The Prime Minister said in his address,
“Upon the inauguration of this 31st Local Government System Research Council I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone in attendance for accepting positions as members of this Council.
I ask that you exert special effort for this Council over the coming two years.
‘There will be no vitalization of Japan without the vitalization of regional communities.’
Just as I have repeatedly stated, the revitalization of the regions is the most important theme of the Abe administration.
In particular, it is incumbent on us to continue to create regional vitality so that people across the country can live pleasant lives with peace of mind, given the diminishing population in our society, which has resulted in continued declines in the number of workers in the regions, the number of people able to support our social security system, and our workforce, for example.
The Abe Cabinet is steadily advancing a variety of initiatives. These include submitting the proposal of a bill on the transition of the work and authority from the national government to local governments, among other matters, and a bill for the revision of the system of large metropolitan areas and creation of new wide-area collaborative systems during the current session of the Diet.
With my Cabinet, I want to further advance necessary reforms, including, of course, the series of decentralization reforms that were started during the first Abe Cabinet, as well as reforms on the future of the regional administrative system and its governance that are needed in order to create regions that are independent and that can leverage their unique characteristics,
I would like the members of this Council to have broad-based discussion on the issues for consultation this time, and submit a concrete proposal.”
Afterwards, Prime Minister Abe received a request for consultation from Chair Nobuo Kuroyanagi.