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On May 14, 2020, the Prime Minister held the 38th Council on Investments for the Future at the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the meeting, the participants held discussions on the response to the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and low-speed, small-sized automatic delivery robots.

Following the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“Today we discussed our response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), including our approach on ‘After Corona.’

In Japan, we suppressed the first wave of infections from China thanks to the cooperation of the public. This is the observation from the genome analysis conducted by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. Regarding the second wave of infections from Europe and the United States, as it was discussed today by the Advisory Committee on the Basic Action Policy, it has been assessed that we have almost suppressed the outbreak with Japan’s own approach. Even in comparison to Europe and the United States, we hold our numbers of infections and deaths at a significantly lower level. I believe the tremendous efforts made and burdens borne by citizens have made this possible. At the same time, the economy continues to face an extremely severe situation. As we are overcoming this situation with everyone’s efforts, the Government has a major responsibility to ensure business continuity and the protection of employment. For that reason, we need even stronger measures.

With regard to maintaining employment, we will consider raising the maximum amount of daily payment of 8,330 yen under the Employment Adjustment Subsidies, the cornerstone of our endeavors, as a special measure, while taking into consideration overseas cases. Furthermore, we will work on simplifying the application process, aiming at expeditious disbursement, and introduce the necessary support measures and legislative measures in the current session of the Diet, based on the perspective of further reducing the procedural burden on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and securing convenience for the workers.

Additionally, in view of the heavy burden of fixed costs for micro-, small- and medium-sized business operators and individual business owners, we will swiftly introduce subsidy programs that reduce the burden to them, including rent, which accounts for a large proportion of personnel costs, while taking into consideration the discussions between the ruling and opposition parties.

In addition to SMEs, financial conditions are also worsening for major corporations and those relatively smaller corporations because of the spread of infections. Measures will be taken to encourage not only governmental financial institutions but also private financial institutions, such as local banks and megabanks, to actively lend. In addition, we will introduce support measures to allow governmental financial institutions to provide long-term capital financing.

Moreover, from the perspective of creating a new normal for everyday life, we intend to provide support for industries in the fields of accommodation, travel, food and events, for their efforts of doing business with new approaches, with the major premise of preventing the spread of infections. In addition, the need for delivery without human intervention is also growing in response to the rapid rise in demand for delivery services. We will perform remote monitoring and operation of low-speed, small-sized automatic delivery robots on public roads as soon as possible, before the end of this year. I ask the relevant ministers to proceed with the practical considerations regarding this matter.”