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Bold Strategy for Growth in Japan Leaves Blanks to Fill
Posted by: jenniyagrc (110.89.18.---)
Date: February 19, 2013 03:08AM

TOKYO — The Japanese government is set to approve a new growth strategy billed as a fundamental rethinking of the economy, tackling deflation and renewing its energy policy after the natural and nuclear disasters last year. The plan, a final draft of which was released Monday, contains impressive targets, like helping to create more than ¥100 trillion, or 1.3 trillion, worth of new industry and 4.7 million new jobs in fields like renewable energy and medicine by 2020. But despite the grand headlines, the strategy — which is set to be approved by the cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Tuesday — adds little to vague promises made by Japanese policy makers for months, if not years, with few results. “The government will continue to watch financial markets closely and will take decisive action when necessary,” according to the draft, in an effort to break what it describes as a vicious cycle of a strong yen and deflation that has weighed on economic growth. And though the strategy identifies Japan’s aging, shrinking population as a major impediment to growth, it suggests few new ways of dealing with it. There is no new approach to immigration — a traditionally sensitive topic in Japan, which sees itself as an ethnically uniform country — and merely hints of tweaking immigration rules to try to attract more skilled workers, and only after further discussion. The strategy sets a target for raising the percentage of new mothers who are able to return to work to 55 percent, an increase experts say would immediately help the work force, and prada handbags encourage women to have more children. But the strategy does not appear to give much priority to addressing a severe shortage in day care centers in Japanese cities, for example, which might help families balance careers and child rearing. The document remains vague on other contentious topics, skirting a much-debated trans-Pacific free trade agreement that would benefit exporters but is opposed by Japan’s powerful farming lobby. The strategy does outline plans that would make Japan a leader in renewable energy and environmental technologies. It calls for policies that would bolster the ratio of fuel-efficient cars like gasoline-electric hybrids and electric vehicles to 50 percent of new-car sales by 2020. It promises to help Japanese companies attain 50 percent of the market for rechargeable batteries by the same year. But it leaves the decision on Japan’s post-Fukushima energy mix to another committee that is debating energy policy. The government has said it wants to reduce dependence on nuclear power, which used to provide about 30 percent of the country’s electricity needs. The committee is now studying various new scenarios — from reducing that ratio to about 25 percent, to taking Japan off nuclear power entirely — and is expected to come up with a recommendation later this year. “To try to reduce our dependence on nuclear power poses a large constraint, jimmy choo handbags but we must think of a strategy that will use that constraint as an impetus for structural reform and growth,” the document said. The Nikkei, the largest business daily in Japan, criticized the document, calling it “wide-ranging but lacking any breakthrough policies.” It quoted Tadashi Okamura, the head of the Japan Chamber of Commerce, as saying he found it “difficult to get a real sense” of how the government would encourage growth. The strategy’s introduction offers a cold-eyed view of Japan’s falling position in the global economic order. “Long gone is an era when Japan led the world in economic might, and when we were Asia’s unrivaled industrial power,” the document said. “Japan is in uncharted territory.”




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