[Provisional Translation]

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

During the meeting, there was a discussion on the draft Plan to Realize the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“Today we have determined the draft Plan to Realize the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens of the National Council for Promoting the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens. Since last October, you experts have held passionate discussions on various major, wide-ranging issues. Among these discussions, some concerns were expressed as to whether or not a draft plan could in fact be formulated, but, with that background, all of you truly offered unerring suggestions and proposals from a variety of viewpoints, and as a result today we have formulated the draft Plan. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your efforts.

Achieving sustainable growth with the background of the aging of society and the declining birthrate is an issue developed nations have in common. I believe that it will be highly significant for Japan, the chair country of the G7 Ise-Shima Summit, to be held next week, to take the lead amongst the other G7 member nations in indicating the path to follow to overcome the aging of society and the declining birthrate. At last year’s G20 and other fora, I introduced this discussion. In the future, I would like to thoroughly advance international discussions on topics of common concern such as this. 

The Plan to Realize the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens has been divided into periods of six years for the first arrow, and ten years for the second and third arrows, and we have indicated the specific measures to be implemented in 43 areas. In this way, this draft has become one that indicates the issues in the lives of the people, and the direction to be taken and measures to be implemented, in an easy-to-grasp manner, and furthermore, provides details including the steps involved in tackling the various measures. Documents issued by the government such as this one are often hard to read, and although this one is also quite long, but I believe that anyone who wants to criticize it can read it thoroughly before offering their criticism. Again, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your efforts in making the document so easy to understand, and for clearly indicating the path to be followed.

I would like you experts to serve as members of the future follow-up meetings. In my view, follow-up is instrumental in the political world. Even though a good draft Plan has been formulated, I would like all of you who devised it to observe whether in fact it is being advanced, and to provide strong guidance. Also, I would like those who proposed the ideas in the Plan to check the results when the measures are actually carried out as policies, and whether or not they are progressing in the proposed direction. In that sense, I place great importance on follow-up, and would like to sincerely request you to accept the posts, and thoroughly oversee the state of implementation of this Plan.

I would like Mr. Kato, Minister for Promoting the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens, to cooperate with the other relevant ministers to further discussions with the ruling parties and advance activities so that a Cabinet decision can be made on the draft Plan to Realize the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens determined by today’s National Council meeting by the end of this month.”