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On February 1, 2018, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 13th meeting of the Council on Investments for the Future at the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the meeting, there was discussion on the implementation of the Productivity Revolution Package.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“First, I would like to begin with the good news that the supplementary budget was passed a short while ago. Next, I would like to have the main budget pass as smoothly as possible.

Dramatic changes are now happening around the world due to new innovations such as robots, the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence. Japan will lead this worldwide trend. With that resolve, we approved the policy package to promote the productivity revolution at the end of last year. I ask that each minister implement these policies in a bold and swift manner.

As society undergoes the dramatic transition to Society 5.0, the government must not be an obstacle, but rather should encourage these changes. Encouragement does not mean the government should stand at the front and pull everything along. The government must boost the efforts of the private sector and become the engine to do that. 

We must undertake bold reviews, including on approaches to traffic rules in the autonomous driving era and the areas of criminal and civil liability, as well as our frequency band allocation method and approaches to broadcasting business towards the effective use of frequency bands, a shared public asset of our people, amidst the convergence of telecommunications and broadcasting through technological innovation. In this era where innovative businesses that cannot be defined under the current business classifications are emerging in quick succession, we must advance inter-connected structural reforms that leverage service and function concepts to rid ourselves of 20th century regulatory systems based on vertical segmentation concepts such as “industry laws,” specifically regulating a certain industry. The regulatory sandbox will be a pioneer for this. We will submit a bill on this to the ordinary Diet session. I would like Japan to steadily solicit new ideas that are ahead of the times domestically and from abroad, and show innovative Japanese businesses to the world. Japan will powerfully lead the worldwide trend toward Society 5.0. Therefore, I ask the relevant ministers to advance reforms with flexible thinking and bold actions. You have the ability to take action. I would like you to also exhibit flexible thinking.”