Under the strong leadership of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, the Government-Ruling Parties Budget Conference held its first meeting at the Prime Minister's Official Residence to consider ways and means of enhancing the efficiency and quality of fiscal administration. In his opening remarks the Prime Minister emphasized the importance, for achieving stable and sustainable growth, of breaking down the fiscal rigidity caused by the practice of allocating budget funds within the framework of individual government agencies. In particular, he expressed his determination to exercise leadership to make fiscal administration more efficient and improve its qualities in view of the reorganization of central government agencies to be implemented in January 2001.

The conference comprises the Prime Minister, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Home Affairs, the Director General of the Economic Planning Agency, and the Secretaries General and policy leaders of the three ruling parties: the Liberal Democratic Party, the New Komeito, and the New Conservative Party. In order to translate the Plan for the Rebirth of Japan, the key policy platform of the second Mori Cabinet, into concrete form, the conference declared its intention of introducing a "special budgetary framework for the rebirth of Japan" that would earmark funds for measures aimed at bringing about the rebirth of Japan's socioeconomy in the twenty-first century. This would target not only the information technology revolution, the aging society, and environmental measures but also such areas as the development of human resources in the context of the creation of new industries, social welfare, and long-term care for the elderly.