Top �� What's up around the Prime Minister �� November, 2003

The Second Meeting of the Headquarters on the Promotion of Policies for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas Friday, November 21, 2003 The meeting of the Headquarters on the Promotion of Policies for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas was held at the Prime Minister's Official Residence. The Headquarters was established inside the Cabinet for the purpose of comprehensively and deliberately promoting measures concerning food, agriculture and rural areas. At the meeting, discussions were made on two themes: 1) promotion of the agricultural policy reform; and 2) cooperation between the Headquarters on the Promotion of Policies for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas and the Headquarters for the Regional Revitalization. At the closing of the meeting, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, "We have reached a time to consider the modalities of the policy concerning food, agriculture and rural areas as well, under the policy of 'from the public sector to the private sector and from the central government to the localities.' Direction of the agricultural policy reform should be determined in this headquarters so as to respond to globalization under the World Trade Organization (WTO), Free Trade Agreement (FTA), or other relevant organizations and agreements. I wish for further revitalization of agriculture and food industry in cooperation with regional revitalization."