The public finance must be improved in continued economic growth. The government has maintained the basic policy stance. The budget bill for the next year follows the line. It is designed to give public money to what is truly needed. Financial support to exhausted regions as well as small and medium enterprises in trouble is not omitted in the draft plan.
The government must have a primary surplus in FY 2011. Stable tax revenue to meet increasing social security expense should be ensured to achieve the aim. The ruling parties have shown the direction toward the consumption tax raise in the near future. Based upon the decision, law makers should discuss in the concrete how to increase the revenue and save government money.
The Japanese economy is slowing down. What has contributed to the situation is the current standstill of the US economic growth as well as technical problems after the building standards law reform in Japan.
The global economy seems to continue expanding at the annual rate of about 5% thanks to a great vigor of emergent economic giants and natural resource rich countries. Japan will get back its economic power in the middle of the next year to attain the 2008 real annual growth rate 2%.
It was a year of turbulence. In the economic aspect, crude oil prices have been rising remarkably since the beginning of the year. The global financial market has been confused because of the US sub-prime mortgage problem and its aftereffect. In the political scene, the ruling parties have been in a delicate position in the Diet due to the latest Upper House election defeat.
Time has come. The great difficulty should be overcome for the Japanese people and national interest.