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[Provisional Translation]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the fourth meeting of the National Council for Promoting the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens at the Prime Minister’s Office.

During the meeting, there was an exchange of opinions toward the formulation of the Plan to Realize the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“At long last, we have drawn the curtains on the starting year for the dynamic engagement of all citizens. We have worked swiftly to realize the “Urgent Policies to Realize a Society in Which All Citizens are Dynamically Engaged” compiled by this Council through the formulation of the supplementary budget and the budget for the coming fiscal year. Furthermore, we shall be submitting numerous relevant bills to this session of the Diet. We were able to begin by passing the supplementary budget in the Diet last week, and I think this has enabled us to start our efforts with rocket-like speed.

I would like to raise more structural issues in the Plan to Realize the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens to be compiled this spring. Building on the discussion today, and in addition to the issue of increasing productivity, I want to form the framework of the Plan around the following three points in particular.

First is reforming the way that people work. Specifically, we will take up the issues of improving the treatment of workers in irregular employment through such efforts as the realization of equal pay for equal work, the promotion of employment among the elderly by offering encouragement to companies that raise mandatory retirement ages, and the implementation of measures to place restraints on the practice of working long hours, among other initiatives.

Second is the improvement of the environment surrounding childcare and nursing care. As an urgent measure for this issue, we have already approved the promotion of efforts to create more daycares. The Plan to Realize the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens will take up the issue of improving the treatment of caregivers and children’s nurses in order to secure human resources for childcare and nursing care.

Thirdly, I want to present a mechanism for a positive cycle of growth and distribution, and I want to quantify the results of that positive cycle to the fullest extent possible. On this point, I would like for you to cooperate with the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy.

In addition to all of that, I also want to take up the other matters that we discussed today, such as the promotion of employment among young people, women, people with disabilities, and people fighting an illness, and the issue of educating children in a way that doesn’t engender entrenched disparities.

I would like this National Council to select its themes for each meeting based on these points and discuss them.

A ten year roadmap will be established as part of the Plan to Realize the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens. I request that work to establish the first arrow center on Minister in charge of Economic Revitalization Ishihara and that work to establish the second and third arrows center on Minister for Promoting Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens Kato. I ask for the cooperation of all relevant ministers on this matter.”