Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the second meeting of the Council on Overcoming Population Decline and Vitalizing Local Economy in Japan, at the Prime Minister's Office.

During the meeting, discussion took place on the issues concerning “long-term vision” and “comprehensive strategy.”

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“In accordance with the issues presented today, at the Council meeting in November we will decide the “long-term vision,” which will present the future outlook, and the outline of the “comprehensive strategy,” which will set the direction of measures for five years.

Based on this, along with compiling policies for vitalizing local economies for the coming years in conjunction with formulating the budget by the end of the year, next year we will address medium- to long-term structural problems. Based also on discussion at the current session of the Diet, I would like you to consider content that adopts a local community perspective and will elicit motivation from the local community.

Currently, initiatives that have been undertaken thus far are being studied under the leadership of the Council.

Based on this, I would like you to proceed in transforming measures for creating local communities. In the past, these measures have been carried out in a fragmented manner by each ministry, which is why, under the leadership of Minister Ishiba, I would like to ask for the continued cooperation of all Cabinet members in thoroughly eliminating overlapping roles at ministries and reviewing ineffective measures.

Additionally, in promoting measures for vitalizing local communities, there is a need for initiatives that differ from economic policies centered on Tokyo. Consequently, based also on objective analysis of regional characteristics utilizing ‘big data,’ I would like you to move ahead with considering concrete measures for one-stop support of community-led proposals, including measures that involve not only monetary compensation, but also related system reform and the procurement of skilled personnel in local communities, while keeping in mind the issue of strengthening the local community bases of businesses, including the relocation of head office functions.

I would like to ask for the ongoing special cooperation of each Council member. Thank you very much.”