[Provisional Translation]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 19th meeting of the Council on National Strategic Special Zones at the Prime Minister's Office.

During the meeting, discussions took place on certifying the special zone plan, and additional items for regulatory reform.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“‘The National Strategic Special Zones will make breakthroughs on all of the reforms of vested interests.’ This was stated in the international commitment two years ago. The time limit for that will arrive at the end of this fiscal year.

During today’s meeting, we heard from Mayor Hirose of Yabu City, where remarkable achievements are already being made in the City as a Special Zone. He spoke about initiatives to overcome the restraints due to vested interests that still remain.

Yabu City is collecting deposits from companies that possess farmland and undertake stable projects. They have set conditions that state that those deposits will be seized if the companies do not maintain the farmland as farmland.

They have created a framework that enables them to restore land to its original state at the expense of the companies in order to dispel local concerns that outsider companies would destroy farmland.

There can be further progress toward reform in this way of pairing measures to relax regulations and initiatives to dispel concerns. We are first confirming the effects of these efforts in the Special Zones.

We will submit to the current session of the Diet a Bill for the Amendment of the National Strategic Special Zones Law  that includes bold reform items related to medical care, tourism, agriculture, and other matters, as a grand compilation of what we have accomplished over the past two years, in order to utilize the creative initiatives of ambitious business operators and municipalities  like Yabu City.

In relation to the items for regulatory reform proposed today as a whole, I want the ministers in charge of each regulation to consider countermeasures to realize the items, and then I would like to make the final judgement on incorporating specific achievements in the Bill.”