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At the first Cabinet Meeting, Prime Minister Abe requested the cabinet members to perform their duties in accordance with the following Basic Policies.
I am aiming for the vision of "a beautiful country, Japan" - a country filled with vitality, opportunity, and compassion, which cherishes a spirit of self-discipline, and is open to the world. In order to realize the vision of a beautiful country, we, the member of the "Cabinet for the creation of a beautiful country," will promote following policies under the political leadership of the Prime Minister's Office.
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| 1.Constructing an Open Economy Full of Vitality |
| We will channel in new vitality to the Japanese economy through the power of innovation and openness to make economic growth possible even when faced with a declining population. |
| We will promote comprehensive assistance measures to build a society of opportunity where everyone has a chance to challenge again - a society in which the efforts of people are rewarded, a society in which there is no stratification into winners and losers, and a society in which ways of working, learning, and living are diverse and multi-tracked. |
| We will proceed with the decentralization of power from central government to local governments. We will initiate a "Helping Striving Regions to Help Themselves Program" next fiscal year to realize regions with an abundance of knowledge and ingenuity. We will implement measures to support small and medium-sized enterprises and to rebuild agriculture, forestry and fisheries industries. |
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| 2.Resolute implementation of Fiscal Consolidation and Administrative Reform |
| Under the principle that there can be no fiscal consolidation without growth, we will reduce expenditure thoroughly and conduct zero-based review, utilizing the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. To achieve a surplus in the primary balance in FY2011, in budget formulation for the next fiscal year, we will hold down the issuance of new government bonds to below the level of the current fiscal year by achieving a well-modulated distribution of outlays. |
| We will organize a simple yet efficient lean government by steadily promoting fundamental administrative reform, such as reduction of number and cost of civil servants, review of the entire civil service system, integration of financial policy institutions, halving the scale of government-held assets by GDP ratio, definite privatization of the postal services, active implementation of market testing, major review of special accounts. |
| We will seek regional autonomy. As such, we will promote regional administrative and financial reforms, and consider legislation for the reconstruction of local governments. |
| For the increase in burden caused by social security services and the declining birthrate, we will advance a drastic and comprehensive reform of the taxation system to secure a stable supply of revenue. |
| We will draw a new grand design for the administrative structure as a whole such as drastic reform and reorganization of administrative institutions, and the formulation of a vision of a regional government (doshu-sei) aimed at its full-fledged introduction. |
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| 3.Realizing a Healthy and Safe Society |
| We will promote a comprehensive reform of the social security system, and will reorganize the Social Insurance Agency from scratch. We will make it a priority to realize the unification of the employee's pension scheme and the mutual aid pension scheme. As for medical care and nursing, we will promote a policy aiming to extend healthy life expectancy by transferring its focus to prevention. |
| We will make every effort to advance measures to address the falling birthrate and build a child-raising friendly society. In that respect, comprehensive assistance will be provided for families engaged in child-raising, including support to reduce the economic burden on families prior to and after childbirth, and during the child-raising period. We will also promote reform of working habits and styles to support child-raising. Furthermore, we will make efforts toward raising awareness so that the joys of child-raising and family values can be shared by the whole of society. |
| We will do our best to restore Japan to the safest country in the world and to prevent the recurrence of incidents that threatens the safety of life. For example, we will prevent malicious incidents in which children are victims. |
| We will steadily advance the Kyoto Protocol Target Attainment Plan. |
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| 4.Rebuilding Education |
| We will immediately engage ourselves in rebuilding education, to nurture people who value their families, their communities, and their country, and who are filled with rich humanity, creativity and discipline. We will ensure the early enactment of the bill concerning the Fundamental Law of Education. |
| We will ensure the early enactment of the bill concerning the Fundamental Law of Education. |
| We will rebuild public education and will promote a program that enhances basic academic abilities. We will seek to introduce a system that requires teachers to renew their teaching licenses, and also introduce an outside assessment of schools. |
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| 5.Shift to Proactive Diplomacy |
| We will demonstrate the "Japan-U.S. Alliance for Asia and the World" even further, and promote proactive diplomacy that will actively contribute to stalwart solidarity in Asia. |
| We will reorganize and enhance the headquarters function and improve intelligence gathering functions of the Prime Minister's Office. |
| We will put in place a framework that ensures constant communication between the Prime Minister's Office and the White House. We aim at realignment of U.S. Forces in Japan which reduces the burdens on local communities while maintaining the deterrence. We will make every effort to revitalize the local communities. |
| We will strengthen bonds of trust with neighboring countries such as China (People's Republic of China), South Korea (Republic of Korea) and Russia so that we can have future-oriented frank discussions with each other. |
| In order to advance comprehensive measures concerning the abduction issue, we will establish the "Headquarters on the Abduction Issue" and assign a secretariat solely dedicated to this Headquarters. |
| Together with international society, we will make every effort to assist the reconstruction of Iraq and to prevent and eliminate terrorism. |
| We will swiftly strengthen efforts to conclude Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and also work towards the resumption of the WTO Doha Round negotiations. |
| We will provide ODA strategically and make efforts to ensure the stable provision of energy resources. |
| We will continue its efforts toward U.N. reform including its pursuit of permanent membership in the Security Council. |
