Though the economy is close to bottoming out, the light at the end of the tunnel is still dim. Until the economy gets back into a recovery track led by the private sector initiative, the government and BOJ need to implement necessary policy measures without a break, seeing to it that public spending and monetary policy must go hand in hand.
Regrettably, quite a few of science and technology-related projects are no exception of drastic budget cut target in the review of the Administrative Regime Council. Japan, poor natural resource country, has no choice but develop its advantage in the field to keep growing. A strong political leadership is anticipated to get back necessary budget.
It is only natural that special taxation measures should be reviewed from scratch. The ones that promote R&D deserve to be permanent.
It tells the current severe economic situation. New graduates suffered from few job opportunities in the depression around 2000 and a lot of companies are having a great difficulty, the shortage of senior human resources. Private companies need to employ some amount of new graduates on a regular basis from the light of a long term corporate management. Keidanren is considering how to ask the member companies for their cooperation.
Asia needs expansion of the market and vitalization of trade and investment through enriching network of EPA/FTA in the area. The region also needs to develop the economy mainly led by domestic demand. The purpose of the Keidanren mission is to share views with political and business leaders of the visiting three countries, Thailand, Singapore and VietNam on growth strategy of Asia. The policy dialogue will become a prelude to 2010 big events such as Asia Business Summit hosted by Keidanren in March and APEC in November.