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On December 19, 2019, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 34th Council on Investments for the Future at the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the meeting, a discussion was held on the draft interim report on the formulation of the action plan of the Growth Strategy.

Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“Today we finalized the interim report regarding the Growth Strategy.

To begin with, on promoting investments of companies’ internal funds in new fields, we will expand the supply of money to start-ups by utilizing companies’ cash, which has increased as an outcome of Abenomics. In the age of the fourth industrial revolution, digital innovation is not only directly linked with nations’ competitiveness but also affects various fields of our society, including national security.

We will support innovation in the field of 5G communications technology with a bold budget and tax measures. We will also present a bill to the next ordinary session of the Diet on the development of rules for the digital market in order to improve the transparency of business relationships, without spoiling innovation.

Furthermore, we will begin reviews of regulatory frameworks befitting the advancement of digital technology. We will materialize Society 5.0 first in the world, which will resolve various social problems through implementing innovations in society. For example, we will prevent traffic accidents involving elderly drivers by spreading the latest safety technologies, such as automatic brake systems. Moreover, in the field of financial services, we will present a bill on payments and intermediation to the next ordinary Diet session, in order to update the regulations to conform to the Internet age.

To maintain infrastructure in local communities where population decline is accelerating, we will also present a bill to the next ordinary Diet session that will exempt passenger buses and local banks from the Antimonopoly Act, on the premise of maintaining current services of, for instance, unprofitable routes.

We will carry out further reviews, listening to the voices of the ruling parties, towards the formulation of a new action plan of the Growth Strategy in summer of next year. I would like Minister in Charge of Economic Revitalization Nishimura and related ministers to advance concrete reviews.”