
The government will compile a comprehensive strategy in January to keep the nation’s population above 100 million in 2060 by drafting measures to maintain the population in each prefecture, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
The government plans to involve not only local governments but also economic organizations in devising the comprehensive strategy, which will include detailed measures to be taken over five years from fiscal 2015. It opened a preparation office on Friday to inaugurate a task force that will play a central role in reinventing provincial areas in the country.
“I want the ministries and agencies to overcome sectionalism and share ideas with each other to reinvent provincial areas,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at the ceremony to launch the preparation office.
The task force is to be officially established in September and chaired by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In addition to a monthly meeting, it will also convene vice-ministerial meetings of relevant ministries and agencies to review the taxation system and tax allocations to local governments.
A panel of experts with the task force is also to meet monthly to study what to include in the government’s “long-term vision” and “comprehensive strategy” to be released in January.
Issues to be discussed initially at the task force will include establishment of an administrative section to advise people who want to move to provincial areas so the excessive concentration of the population in Tokyo can be alleviated. The use of land, including abandoned farmland, is also to be reviewed at the task force to encourage the restructuring of depopulated areas.
Policies not related to rural areas are also to be studied. One is to create a new employment system to secure a yearly household income of ¥5 million, so young people do not give up marrying or having children due to economic constraints.
Another topic is how to expand the child-care leave system to more workers, including nonregular employees.
The government plans to encourage each prefecture to draw up a “regional population vision” by next March, based on the nation’s comprehensive strategy. This is to include estimates for changes in population, tax revenues and corporate activity in each region.
Based on this, each prefecture is to create a “local comprehensive strategy” in fiscal 2015.
To publicize this series of measures to address population decline and other initiatives, the government is considering publishing a population white paper.
To carry out these plans, the government will request ¥1 trillion in the fiscal 2015 budget as a special quota for the reinvention of provincial areas.
Plan for local populations due in Jan. - The Japan News
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