[Provisional Translation]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 20th meeting of the Administrative Reform Promotion Council at the Prime Minister’s Office.

During the meeting, discussions took place on the “compilation of the FY2015 ‘Autumn Review,’ and other matters.”

Based on the discussion in the meeting, the Prime Minister said,

“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone on this Council for your cooperation on the third ‘Autumn Review’ since the inauguration of the Abe administration.
We must ensure that we will not be criticized for using tax money, which is paid by the people, on wasteful expenditures or on measures that are of low priority.

Today, Minister Kono gave a report on points identified within the ‘Autumn Review’ and elsewhere. All of these issues are important. Just as Deputy Prime Minister Aso stated, we will accurately reflect these points in the formulation of the budget and work to further improve administrative programs.

In addition, I intend to fully take into consideration the points made by everyone here today and reflect them in the management of policies.

As you have stated, public interest has risen dramatically recently in light of the hard work conducted by everyone here, led by Minister Kono. I intend to harness the interest and opinions of the public to strongly push administrative reform forward.”