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On April 3, 2019, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 26th meeting of the Council on Investments for the Future at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
At the meeting, a discussion was held on integration of management and joint management for businesses such as local banks and fixed route buses.
 
Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,
 
“Today, we held discussions on integration of management and joint management of local banks and fixed route buses, focusing on the competition policy aspects.
 
Firstly, fixed route buses are an important means of transportation for local communities, and it is necessary to maintain their operation, especially for the elderly. Today, Mayor Tachiya and others drew attention to the current status, which is causing concerns locally. If we are to permit joint management for those fixed route buses, optimizing the over-provision of the bus services in town centers, it would make it possible to maintain routes with low demand through revenue adjustment. This will improve convenience for everyone in the local communities. I intend to introduce a new scheme, which is based on the premise of establishing a council of the relevant stakeholders, in each area.
 
Secondly, I would like to touch upon local banks. They support local economies, serving as the primary bank for 70% to 80% of local companies, in their respective regions. If their business performance were to deteriorate, the adverse impacts, such as a drop in lending, could spread to depositors and borrowers, and disrupt the smooth provision of financial intermediation in the regions. In order to improve the business performance of local banks swiftly, we will give due considerations so as to allow integration of businesses as exceptions even if their market share exceeds a certain level, with the premise that they will exert efforts to maintain their services in local communities, depending on their capacity that has been expanded by the integration.  
 
We will proceed our review to introduce special provisions regarding the aforementioned points and incorporate the outcome into the action plan of the Growth Strategy, which we will compile this summer. I would like to ask Minister Motegi, Minister Aso, and Minister Ishii to hold detailed reviews towards summer.”