Top �� What's up around the Prime Minister �� July, 2004

Prime Minister Receives a Proposal from the National Council on Promotion of Economic Partnerships Thursday, July 26, 2004 Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi received a visit and a proposal from Mr. Motoshige Ito, a professor at the Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo, Mr. Hiroshi Okuda, the Chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) and Mr. Kakutaro Kitashiro, the Chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai) as well as other representatives of the National Council on Promotion of Economic Partnerships for the Revitalization of Japan. This Council aims to bring active discussion on the significance of economic partnerships and mutual exchanges with East Asian countries as well as on the modality of Japanese economy and society. As such, with the aim of fostering national consensus, approximately 150 experts from various fields from industry, agriculture, labor, culture to economics take part in these discussions. Depicting an image of Japan as a nation built on trade in the 21st century, the proposal urges Japan to take leadership in the expanding trend of economic partnerships across East Asia; to increase the international competitiveness of its domestic industries including agriculture and small- and medium-sized manufacturers; and to establish headquarters such as a strategic headquarters for East Asia economic partnership and formation of a consortium to realize the stability of the region with a central role in simultaneously promoting East Asia economic partnership and formation of a consortium along with domestic structural reform.