Thursday, October 16, 2008

A Joint Meeting of the Government and Ruling Parties Council on New Economic Countermeasures

Prime Minister Taro Aso held a joint meeting of the Government and Ruling Parties Council on New Economic Countermeasures, comprised of the Cabinet members and the ruling parties' executives, at the Prime Minister's Office, and instructed the participants to urgently formulate new economic countermeasures, known as the Policy Package to Support the People's Lives, to respond to the new situations that have arisen since the formulation of the Comprehensive Immediate Policy Package to Ease Public Anxiety. The three priority areas of the economic measures ordered by Prime Minister Aso are "the people's lives," "the regions," and "financial measures and business revitalization of micro-, small and medium-sized companies and others." It is also stipulated that reliance on deficit bonds will be avoided as much as possible when financing the economic measures.

In his opening address, Prime Minister Aso said, "We must seriously consider how to prevent the current financial crisis and other uncertainties from impacting the lives of ordinary people and what measures are necessary to this end. The outline I have created places "the people's lives" as the top priority agenda item. I would like to see to it that the Government and the ruling parties formulate the economic measures in the week of October 27. We must minimize reliance on deficit bonds when financing the economic measures and swiftly formulate a mid-term program to secure stable financial resources for building a sustainable social security system. The vision of the tax system reform, which is necessary to increase the State's contribution to the basic pension to 50 percent, must also be included in the policy package. I ask all the Cabinet members and the ruling parties -- the policymakers in particular -- to formulate, based on the abovementioned points, an emergency policy package of economic measures at the earliest date, in order to respond to the pressing economic situation."