Keidanren has been advocating the introduction of a regional government system called doshu-sei by publicizing its first proposal over the issue in 2007 and the second one in 2008, focusing on the revitalization of local economies through administrative and fiscal reforms of the central and local governments as well as the enhancement of international competitiveness by allowing local governments to tackle with policy issues in diverse ways.

In the past three years, efforts for the regional government system in national politics have stagnated, but the momentum toward the realization of the system has been brought back because the new government advocates the "Promotion of the Doshu-sei regional system." Therefore, on March 14, we compiled our urgent proposal for urging the government to take concrete actions..

We stressed in the proposal the following two points that should be urgently addressed.

Firstly, it is essential to swiftly enact and promulgate a basic law for promoting doshu-sei at the present ordinary Diet session. To realize doshu-sei within five years after the passage of the law, the proposal also requests the establishment of a "Doshu-sei Promotion Headquarters," with the prime minister as its chief and all Cabinet members as its members, and a "National Council for Doshu-sei" consisting of intellectuals for creating reports on key matters.

Secondly, it is necessary to promote the decentralization reforms. Especially, local branches of the central government agencies should be downsized and abolished, and the authority, fiscal resources as well as the clerical function should be transferred from the central government to wide-area local government bodies, such as cross-regional federations.