Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Asked about Basic Principles of the FY2009 Budget Formulation, Prime Minister Aso said, "The global financial crisis and domestic economic slowdown are worsening rapidly. Given this, our top priority is to safeguard the people's lives and the Japanese economy. People's daily lives come first; we must ensure peace of mind in people's daily lives. We must also strengthen financial and economic stability, which mainly involves the issue of cash flow for micro-, small and medium-sized companies, and enable the fulfillment of the regions' latent powers. The basic principle is to allocate the budget to those three areas in a prioritized manner."