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On May 25, 2021, the Prime Minister held the seventh meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy in 2021 at the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the meeting, the participants engaged in discussions on the Integrated Economic and Fiscal Reforms (local public administration and finance, social infrastructure improvement) and the draft outline of the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform 2021 or “Big-Boned Policy."

Following the discussion, the Prime Minister said,
 
 “Today, we held discussions on the draft outline of the Basic Policy as well as the reforms of local public administration and finance and social infrastructure improvement toward the formulation of the Basic Policy.
 
We intend to show that this year’s Basic Policy sets out taking on challenges especially in four areas, namely, green and digital fields, local communities, and children, in order to bring solutions to long-standing problems, achieve a powerful growth, and lead the world, while first giving the highest priority to the response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), with the post-COVID-19 era in mind.
 
We will utilize these initiatives to promote bold investments and innovation by the private sector, thereby bringing about the transformation of the socio-economic structure. In addition, based on the idea that the economy is the foundation of public finance, we will advance growth-oriented policies without lowering the banner of realizing fiscal soundness, such as achieving primary balance surplus, and continue our existing efforts to improve government expenditures.
 
Foreign direct investment in Japan is crucial to the country’s growth. Therefore, we will make government-wide efforts to increase the amount to 80 trillion yen, twice the current figure, in 2030.
 
Regarding local communities, we will examine our response to the current COVID-19 pandemic and discuss the ideal role sharing between local municipalities and between national and local governments.
 
As for social infrastructure improvement, we will utilize information and communications technologies (ICT) to shift to preventive maintenance, or moving up maintenance activities, in order to extend the life of facilities, as well as incorporate the ingenuity of the private sector as much as possible via private finance initiatives (PFI) and other means.
 
We will formulate the Basic Policy next month based on today’s draft outline. Therefore, I ask each minister to hold thorough discussions to make the Basic Policy big-boned enough to give the big picture of our course of action.”