Friday, April 10, 2009

A Joint Meeting of the Government and Ruling Parties Council on Countermeasures to Address the Economic Crisis and the Ministerial Meeting on Economic Measures

Prime Minister Taro Aso held a joint meeting of the Government and Ruling Parties Council on Countermeasures to Address the Economic Crisis and the Ministerial Meeting on Economic Measures, which was attended by Cabinet members and senior officials of the ruling parities, at the Prime Minister's Office. The countermeasures to address the economic crisis -- an additional set of economic countermeasures -- were decided on during the meeting.

With emphasis being placed on urgent countermeasures to prevent economic activity from breaking the bottom, investment into the future as a growth strategy, and all-out mobilization of policy to ensure peace of mind and growth, the countermeasures to address the economic crisis outline the basic policies to overcome the crisis, which are: to ensure the entire nation is united in its responses, to take responses according to economic situations, and to take responses with a view to multiple fiscal years.

Prime Minister Aso said, "Fundamentally, the foremost objective of the latest economic countermeasures is to prevent, in absolute terms, economic activity from breaking the bottom. Secondly, we must secure employment and ease the people's pain. Thirdly, we must make these efforts conducive to the strengthening of future economic growth, rather than being short sighted. I will first raise these three points. The responses will be taken as all-Japan efforts, not limited by those in Kasumigaseki and Nagatacho. We should take bold actions without being constrained by precedents, given that what we are facing is a matter of once in a century. I also gave an instruction to come up with a method to take responses that would extend over multiple fiscal years, rather than a single fiscal year. I extend my heartfelt appreciation to the representatives of each political party and people in charge of policy for compiling these economic countermeasures within an extremely short time. I ask for strong support from the ministries concerned so as to steadily implement these countermeasures and so as to overcome the current difficult situation."