Prime Minister Naoto Kan attended the first meeting of the Evaluation Council on Requests for the Special Funding to Bring Vigor Back to Japan at the Prime Minister's Office.

The Council holds its meetings with the purpose of prioritizing policies related to requests for the "special funding to bring vigor back to Japan," which was established in the Guidelines for FY2011 Budget Requests Reformulation (Cabinet decision on July 27, 2010).

The Prime Minister said in his opening address, "The budget for fiscal 2011 is an extremely important budget to promote the New Growth Strategy unfailingly and bring vigor back to Japan. Aiming to formulate an effective budget, the government has established the 'special funding to bring vigor back to Japan.' We are firmly determined to reformulate the budget boldly by prioritizing policies in a manner open to the public. In so doing, I ask the Council to evaluate requests comprehensively, taking into account those for the special funding and for the existing budget as a set, in light of the original intention to boldly reformulate the budget by not only carefully selecting appropriate projects to bring vigor back to Japan, but also reducing the existing budget."