Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 16th meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy at the Prime Minister's Office.

During the meeting, discussion took place on work toward achieving both economic revitalization and fiscal soundness.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister made the following remarks in his address,

“Today, we began concrete discussion toward the FY2015 budget formulation. Achieving both economic revitalization and fiscal soundness is an extremely important issue not only in terms of the budget for next fiscal year but also from a mid- to long-term perspective. I want to proceed forward with discussion without creating any sanctuaries, including social security expenses, and I hope to thoroughly address annual expenditures.

In addition, there is a need to give sufficient attention to matters such as how we will recover from the partially weak economic trends seen this summer, and what the future prospects are. I hope we will continue to have thorough discussions in this Council on these matters.”