Policy Speech by Prime Minister TAKAICHI Sanae to the 219th Session of the Diet (Speeches and Statements by the Prime Minister)

1. Introduction

Bolstered by a powerful and unwavering perception within the latent energy and vitality of Japan and the Japanese folks, I stand earlier than you at the moment as I tackle the obligation of forging a path for Japan’s future.

I’ll attempt to construct a sturdy economic system, turning folks’s unease and apprehension over their present lives and the longer term into hope and foster a Japan that’s stronger and extra affluent. I’ll take care of the challenges going through the worldwide group as I embark on restoring Japanese diplomacy that prospers on the world’s heart stage. I’ll do these resolutely for the sake of Japan and the Japanese folks, crammed with the willpower to press forward tenaciously beneath any circumstances.

We will likely be powerless to press ahead with dynamic financial insurance policies or potent diplomatic and safety insurance policies if we fail to have stability in politics. Guided by this thought, I’ve established a coalition authorities between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party beneath a wide-ranging coverage settlement that goals on the revival of Japan.

Moreover, we’ll make politics secure for the advantage of each the nation and the Japanese folks. We will settle for coverage proposals from different events so long as they don’t seem to be inconsistent with the Basic Policy of this administration and reveal flexibility and sincerity when discussing them. We will make all-out efforts to undertake reforms that restore the general public’s belief in politics.

We will persevere to the very finish, regardless of the circumstances, whether it is for Japan and the Japanese folks. This is the unshakable coverage of the Takaichi Cabinet.

2. Basic coverage on financial and financial initiatives

Fostering a sturdy economic system will likely be completely important, it doesn’t matter what we search to implement. I’ll now speak in regards to the primary coverage governing the financial and financial initiatives we’ll pursue to result in such an economic system.

My cupboard regards as elementary the precept that the economic system is what permits fiscal spending. In order to construct a sturdy economic system, we’ll strategically make use of fiscal insurance policies as we endeavor to boost incomes, remodel folks’s mindsets relating to consumption, and enhance tax revenues with out elevating tax charges as enterprise earnings improve, all in line with our strategy of accountable and proactive public funds. By realizing this financial virtuous cycle, we’ll allow the general public to really feel the fruits of financial restoration in a tangible method, thereby altering fear into hope.

Following this path, we’ll curb the speed of development of Japan’s excellent debt steadiness in order to not exceed the speed of financial development and decrease Japan’s ratio of excellent authorities debt to GDP. This will convey in regards to the sustainability of public funds and guarantee belief from the markets.

3. Measures to deal with rising costs

My cupboard will mount responses to the rising costs going through the Japanese folks, as a matter of the very best precedence. We will swiftly and with out fail convey a way of safety to folks of their each day lives.

While it’s important to have wage will increase that surpass the rise in costs, leaving the matter solely as much as companies solely ends in making it tough for enterprise operators to run their firms. The function of presidency lies in getting ready an setting wherein wage will increase will be undertaken in a sustained method.

That stated, it’ll take a sure period of time till sustained will increase in actual wages grow to be firmly rooted in society. It can be a matter of urgency to take care of enterprise operators impacted by the U.S. tariff measures and supply help to medical establishments and nursing care services the place operational difficulties have gotten more and more extreme.

I’ve already directed my cupboard to start formulating financial measures. While repeatedly partaking in honest discussions with members of opposition events to construct up consensus, we’ll compile measures quickly and submit the required supplementary finances to the Diet. Let us convey collectively the insights of each the ruling and opposition events in order that we emerge with financial measures and a supplementary finances that may safeguard folks’s each day lives and livelihoods.

We won’t implement the stipend pledged by the Liberal Democratic Party throughout this summer time’s House of Councillors election marketing campaign as a result of it failed to achieve the understanding of the general public. We will as an alternative take well-crafted responses to the issues of the general public relating to rising costs, meticulously addressing every considered one of them.

First of all, we’ll endeavor to go a invoice through the present Diet session that abolishes the so-called provisional tax fee on gasoline, by way of discussions among the many numerous political events. We additionally purpose for the early abolition of the provisional tax fee on the supply of diesel oil. While guaranteeing secure income for each the nationwide and native governments, which is able to grow to be needed as we abolish these provisional tax charges, we’ll cope with the drop in costs by making use of subsidies till we’ve succeeded in abolishing these provisional tax charges.

Dealing with medical establishments and nursing care services struggling as they function within the pink is a matter of nice urgency if we’re to safeguard folks’s lives and be sure that individuals are capable of obtain needed providers with out anxiousness. Going ahead, we’ll appropriately replicate the will increase in each wages and costs inside our reimbursements for medical care and nursing care providers supplied. However, as an alternative of ready for the timing of standard revisions to those reimbursements, we’ll arrange subsidies designed to assist managerial reforms and enhance worker therapy, precipitating the specified advantages forward of schedule.

In addition, we’ll conduct an acceptable overview of unit costs for contracted work provided from the nationwide and native governments to the personal sector, primarily based on value will increase and different related elements.

We will shield small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small-scale enterprise operators from rising prices. We will strongly assist wage will increase and capital funding by way of means similar to help to spice up productiveness, efforts to domesticate an setting facilitating enterprise succession and mergers and acquisitions, and additional efforts to make sure correct enterprise transactions.

We will develop our provision of grants to native areas for prioritized help, geared toward helping native governments. We will create a menu of advisable measures that present assist for shoppers impacted by excessive costs, SMEs and small-scale enterprise operators which can be unable to utilize the tax scheme selling wage will increase, and agriculture, forestry, and fisheries companies. We will ship well-targeted assist suited to the precise state of affairs present in every native space, and alongside this, we’ll present help for electrical energy and fuel payments through the winter months when the chilly is most extreme.

With regard to the disincentives for second earners to earn greater than a specific amount of revenue yearly, referred to as the “barrier of 1.03 million yen,” we’ll elevate the revenue restrict [qualifying for dependent deductions] to 1.60 million yen through the year-end adjustment for 2025. We can even advance our discussions in a honest method on a tax measure to additional elevate the essential deduction in a means that’s linked to adjustments in costs.

As for making highschool tuition and college lunches successfully free, we’ll construct upon the a number of discussions held to date transcending occasion and factional strains and advance our discussions on learn how to design the related methods, safe secure funding for these initiatives, and implement each of them from subsequent April. We will take this chance to transcend solely offering monetary assist and press ahead with a overview of what highschool training in Japan ought to appear like.

We should additionally cut back the burden borne by middle- and low-income earners, who battle to shoulder taxes and social insurance coverage premiums, and be sure that folks’s web incomes improve as their earnings rise. We will promptly start designing a system for refundable tax credit.

To reply to the U.S. tariff measures, we’ll put together a menu of assist choices, together with cash-flow measures for SMEs, tailor-made to enterprise operators’ particular person conditions and desires, and take all attainable measures to scale back the impression.

4. Achieving sturdy financial development by way of daring strategic investments that improve resilience in opposition to potential crises

It is vitally necessary for us to make Japan’s “economic pie” bigger over the medium to long run. We will purpose to domesticate cutting-edge applied sciences that contribute to resolving the problems Japan faces, enabling the Japanese economic system to comprehend vigorous development. As a step in direction of that objective, we’ll launch the Council for Japan’s Growth Strategy.

Strategic investments that improve resilience in opposition to potential crises are the core focus of the Takaichi Cabinet’s development technique. These are strategic investments that the private and non-private sector will implement preemptively, working hand in hand, to deal with numerous dangers and social points, together with financial safety, meals safety, power safety, well being and medical safety, and measures to boost nationwide resilience. If we achieve offering merchandise, providers, and infrastructure that contribute to the decision of commonly-shared international points, that may result in additional financial development for Japan. Transforming apprehension in direction of the longer term into hope, we’ll carve out new development for the economic system.

In strategic fields similar to AI and semiconductors, shipbuilding, quantum expertise, biotechnology, aviation and house, and cyber safety, we’ll take complete assist measures from a multifaceted perspective that features boldly selling funding, supporting worldwide growth, cultivating human assets, selling startups, conducting analysis and improvement, fostering collaboration between trade and academia, and worldwide standardization of our merchandise. By so doing, we’ll draw out proactive funding from each the general public and the personal sector.

Aiming to make Japan the world’s greatest nation to develop and use AI, we’ll make the most of knowledge linkage and integration and different means to speed up the analysis, improvement, and commercialization of AI and different new digital applied sciences. Beyond that, we’ll assist the abroad growth of industries associated to digital applied sciences, together with the content material trade.

I supply my hearty congratulations to Dr. SAKAGUCHI Shimon and Dr. KITAGAWA Susumu on being awarded this yr’s Nobel Prizes. The basis of a sturdy economic system is excellent scientific and technological capabilities, along with human assets who’re able to selling innovation.

We will push ahead with our efforts to bolster public training and reform universities. We will on the similar time present strategic assist that may assist to advance science and engineering and contribute to fostering human assets, embracing the objective of being a brand new type of technology-driven nation.

We can even want the ability of finance to speed up our development technique. Building upon the outcomes of our efforts to shift capital from financial savings into investments as one a part of our promotion of Japan as a number one asset administration heart, we’ll formulate a technique that unleashes the latent potential of each the Japanese economic system as a complete and native economies by way of monetary mechanisms and implement such technique by way of public-private cooperation.

By so doing, we’ll fortify Japan’s provide construction and convey about an economic system that invitations belief from traders across the globe. This will give rise to a virtuous cycle wherein capital from all over the world flows into Japan.

5. Food safety

From the angle of revitalizing native communities and guaranteeing meals safety, it will likely be necessary to advertise the agriculture, forestry and fishery industries. In the realm of agriculture, we’ll safe a particular budgetary allocation through the interval for enterprise intensive measures to remodel agricultural constructions, which lasts 5 years. We will make use of world-class plant factories, land-based aquaculture, satellite tv for pc knowledge, AI evaluation, and sensors, amongst different cutting-edge applied sciences, and promote exports, thereby fostering agriculture, forestry and fishery industries that flip a revenue.

6. Energy safety

The secure and cheap provide of power is completely essential in sustaining the each day lives of the Japanese folks and nurturing our home industries whereas additional strengthening the competitiveness of areas for attracting enterprise investments. In specific, domestically-sourced power, notably nuclear energy and Perovskite photo voltaic cells, will likely be vital. Utilizing the Green Transformation (GX) finances, we’ll leverage decarbonized power sources to the fullest attainable extent whereas additionally urgent ahead with complete power conservation and gas switching by using applied sciences similar to photonics-electronics convergence expertise. Such initiatives will likely be premised on gaining the understanding of the native communities and on giving due regard to environmental impacts. We can even attempt for the early sensible adoption in society of next-generation superior reactors and fusion power.

We will give concrete form to those measures instantly. Let us make collective efforts throughout Japan to comprehend a sturdy economic system.

7. Measures to boost nationwide resilience through the Reiwa period

Japan is without doubt one of the world’s most disaster-prone international locations. As such, proactive catastrophe prevention in anticipation of a possible large earthquake similar to an earthquake within the Nankai Trough or immediately beneath the Tokyo metropolitan space and emergency response, restoration, and reconstruction within the wake of disasters ought to they really happen are among the many highest-priority points for Japan as a nation.

Accordingly, we’ll speed up preparations for the institution in fiscal 2026 of a devoted Disaster Management Agency, with a view to enterprise a elementary reinforcement of our catastrophe administration framework. Alongside this, we’ll perform a complete danger evaluation by way of simulations carried out by each the nationwide and native governments. We can even rigorously implement proactive catastrophe prevention and preventive upkeep in each structural and non-structural points, together with by way of using digital applied sciences and satellite tv for pc info, electromagnetic knowledge, and drones, in addition to by way of creating and sustaining catastrophe prevention infrastructure and getting older infrastructure.

To counteract the rising frequency and depth of pure disasters, we’ll revise our methods and newly implement particular flood warnings and joint forecasts and warnings for storm surges, made attainable by way of enhancements in forecasting applied sciences and different advances.

We will create a system that may function a backup to the disaster administration features of the Tokyo metropolitan space. From the angle of decentralizing the features of the capital and establishing a multi-centered financial zone, we’ll transfer rapidly to think about the obligations and features of the capital and secondary capital.

Without the reconstruction of Fukushima, there will likely be no reconstruction of Tohoku. And with out the reconstruction of Tohoku, there will likely be no revival of Japan. Among different endeavors, we’ll work to rebuild the each day lives in addition to the industries, occupations, and livelihoods of the catastrophe victims and promote the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework.

Soon it will likely be two years for the reason that Noto Peninsula Earthquake struck. And, a full yr has already handed for the reason that heavy rains battered Oku-Noto, which was within the midst of reconstruction efforts. In order to convey again the each day bustle of life in Noto and the grins on the faces of the folks there on the earliest attainable timing, we’ll swiftly handle the restoration of infrastructure. We can even advance help concentrating on the each day lives of the catastrophe victims and make progress in rebuilding folks’s livelihoods and restoring conventional industries.

8. Health and medical safety

Protecting the lives and the well being of the folks is a crucial type of safety.

If we’re to beat the decline in inhabitants alongside the shrinking birthrate and getting older of society, we have to have a nationwide dialogue about how we should always design the advantages and burdens related to the social safety system. We will set up a nationwide council that may embrace nonpartisan and professional members and talk about the excellent reform of social safety and taxation methods, together with designing a system for tax credit with advantages. This council can even embrace members of the opposition events, and I hope that collectively we’ll advance our discussions on these issues.

Building upon the agreements amongst political events reached to date, we’ll promptly look at reviewing out-of-pocket prices for prescription drugs much like over-the-counter medication, digitization at medical establishments, together with digital medical data, and the conclusion of environment friendly, top quality medical care, together with by way of using digital well being data to enhance well being care.

It can be essential to reformulate a healthcare system that responds to the getting older of society. We will formulate a brand new imaginative and prescient for regional well being care that features not solely hospitalization but in addition coordination with outpatient care, home-based medical care, and nursing care. We can even promote discussions inside native communities. In addition, we’ll undertake complete measures designed to rectify the uneven distribution of docs. Alongside these efforts, we’ll make progress in optimizing the variety of hospital beds in preparation for the brand new regional imaginative and prescient for well being care.

As we press ahead with these reforms to the social safety system, we’ll preserve in verify the insurance coverage premium burden shouldered by the working technology. For points needing rapid responses, we’ll expedite our discussions.

We can even work to increase wholesome life expectancy by totally pursuing “proactive preventive health care.” We will purpose to allow folks to stay wholesome and energetic lives to allow them to contribute to the social safety system. In specific, we’ll speed up our responses to well being points that come up from gender variations. I’ve been engaged in girls’s lifelong well being points for a few years now, and final yr, the Integrated Center for Women’s Health was based. Positioning this Center as a “control tower,” we’ll develop the outcomes throughout the nation by getting ready services for medical examinations, partaking in analysis, and fostering human assets with regard to illnesses which can be distinctive to girls.