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On December 22, 2017, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe jointly held the 72nd meeting of the Strategic Headquarters for the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society (IT Strategic Headquarters), and the 3rd meeting of the Strategic Council for the Promotion of the Use of Public Data by the Private Sector, at the Prime Minister's Office.

During the meeting, an exchange of views took place on the state of progress related to the Basic Plan for the Promotion of the Use of Public Data by the Private Sector, and on the basic policy for the establishment of a new IT strategy.

Based on the exchange of views, the Prime Minister said,

“We have been promoting the digitization of administrative processes for nearly 20 years, yet even now electronic applications require obtaining and attaching paper documents, wasting time and effort. We will do away entirely with paper document attachments for electronic applications, such as certifications related to family and company registers. Under the leadership of Minister Matsuyama, I ask that you immediately start working on the preparation of a draft bill, so that it can be submitted to the Diet as quickly as possible.

In the Big Data era, the vast amount of data held by national and local governments contributes to the creation of new values, such as innovative businesses. Therefore, under the overarching policy of making administrative data public as much as possible and encouraging the use of this data by the private sector, please move forward with the work to hold public-private roundtable meetings for reflecting the needs of the private sector in administrative processes, and then create guidelines on the handling of administrative data to ensure the implementation of open data across the country.

Under the leadership of Minister Matsuyama, I would like all ministers to make concerted efforts within the IT Strategic Headquarters and the Strategic Council for the Promotion of the Use of Public Data by the Private Sector.”