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On September 23, 2020, the Prime Minister attended the Ministerial Meeting on Digital Transformation at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
Following the discussion, the Prime Minister said,
 
“In the recent response to the novel coronavirus disease, a variety of issues related to digitalization have been revealed, including delays in digitization within the national and local governments and lack of personnel, inefficient government caused by insufficient links among different systems, and deteriorated services for residents due to complicated procedures and delays in disbursements, as well as delays in the digitization of the private sector and society as a whole.
 
This administration will tear down bureaucratic sectionalism and boldly implement reforms to fundamentally resolve these longstanding issues. We will establish an agency in charge of digital transformation to bring a breakthrough in those efforts.
 
By establishing this new organization, we will materialize services that citizens commonly wish to have and create a society in which they can reap the benefits of digitalization, such as deregulating online medical consultations and digital education among others, along with unifying and standardizing the systems of the national and local governments, expediting disbursements and making administrative procedures available online with smartphones, and supporting the digitization of the private sector and semi-public sector.
 
To that end, this agency must be a robust organization that possesses a strong control tower function, attracts highly capable personnel regardless of whether they are from the public or private sector, and leads the digitalization of society as a whole.
 
I intend to accelerate the relevant reviews, formulate the basic directions by the end of the year, and submit the necessary bills to the next ordinary session of the Diet. In addition, I also plan to fundamentally revise the Basic Act on the Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society, which is an important piece of legislation in the digital field.
 
The establishment of such an agency is a reform that will become a major turning point for Japan’s economy and society, and we must work on it with a speed that has never been seen before. I ask Minister for Digital Transformation Hirai to play a central role in this reform, breaking through the various barriers and boldly steering these efforts. I also ask all ministers to extend their full cooperation for this major reform."