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On October 4, the government and the DPJ explained an outline of measures to be included in a supplementary budget for fiscal 2010 to representatives of five opposition parties (the LDP, Komeito, Your Party, the Sunrise Party of Japan, and the New Renaissance Party).
At the start of the meeting, the Chair of the DPJ Policy Research Committee Koichiro Gemba (Minister of State for National Policy) said that after considering a response to a representation from the five opposition parties made to the government on September 9 regarding emergency economic measures, including drafting a supplementary budget, and in response to a directive from the Prime Minister on September 27 stating that economic measures should be considered, a forum for providing a reply to the opposition parties had been scheduled.
Gemba said that “the five pillars of reform measures contained in the Prime Minister’s directive are : (1) employment and development of human resources, (2) promotion of a new growth strategy, (3) child-rearing, medical care, nursing care, social welfare and the like, (4) revitalization of the regions, enhancement of social capital, measures directed at small and medium sized businesses, (5) regulatory reform, and we are currently considering [measures] in accordance with the directive.” He went on to express the opinion that the separate legislatory measures requested by the various opposition parties were not that far removed from the basic direction of the measures being considered.
With regard to the scale of the economic measures, Gemba revealed that an estimated 4.8 trillion yen, around 3.5 trillion yen if transfers of tax monies allocated to regional government were excluded, could be obtained by employing increased tax revenues and surplus accounts, while maintaining fiscal discipline. He went on to express the intention of taking firm measures to deal with the strong yen, including exchange rate intervention, as well as stating that the DPJ would continue to liaise closely with the government side regarding financial measures, and hoped to see further policy measures from the Bank of Japan with a view to helping the economy to escape from the clutches of deflation.
Following this, Gemba said, “Economic measures are vitally important for protecting the nation’s livelihood and I would like to ask for non-partisan understanding and cooperation toward achieving a speedy decision on economic measures and passing a supplementary budget.”
It was agreed that the representatives of each of the opposition parties would report the response from the government and the DPJ to their respective parties and that further debate on the issue would be held in an open forum such as the Diet.
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