 Source : TOKYO (Reuters) Japan’s opposition Democratic Party swept to a historic victory in an election on Sunday, ending more than half a century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party. Below is an outline of major economic policies in the Democrats’ platform announced before the election. |
ECONOMIC GROWTH STRATEGY
» Pay out 26,000 yen per month to families per child in full from April 2011.
» Make public high schools free of charge.
» Introduce income support for farmers in full from April 2011.
» Abolish a decades-old surcharge of about 25 yen per liter on gasoline and other car-related taxes to achieve 2.5 trillion yen ($26 billion) in tax cuts.
» Gradually scrap highway tolls.
» Increase household disposable income by these means, expand consumption and thus change the Japanese economy to one in which growth is led by domestic demand; realize stable economic growth.
» Support IT, biotechnology, environment related businesses as growth sectors, along with agriculture.
IMPLEMENT POLICIES AS FUNDS FOUND
» Cut wasteful spending by such means as halting public works projects and reducing government personnel costs.
» Gradually implement policies at the cost of 7.1 trillion yen in the first year starting from next April, rising to 16.8 trillion yen in the fourth year.
EMPLOYMENT AND ECONOMY
» Bring down the corporate tax rate for small- and mid-sized firms to 11 percent from the current 18 percent.
» Establish a nationwide minimum wage of 800 yen and aim at increasing that to 1,000 yen per hour.
» Ban in general the dispatch of temp workers to manufacturers and expand permanent employment.
CLIMATE CHANGE
» Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by more than 60 percent by 2050.
» Create a domestic emissions trading market, with compulsory volume caps on emitters and consider introducing a climate tax.
» Introduce a “feed-in” tariff for any type of renewable energy supply, under which power companies pay an above-market rate for every unit of such types of power, and boost renewable energy sources to about 10 percent of primary energy supply by 2020.
FREE TRADE DEALS
» Promote negotiations on a free trade deal without hurting stable food supply and domestic agriculture.
» Aim at free trade agreements with various Asia-Pacific countries and actively promote negotiations without hurting stable food supply and domestic agriculture.
PENSIONS, MEDICAL CARE
» Focus on recovering missing pension records for the first two years starting next April.
» Standardize the pension system with a minimum pension allowance of 70,000 yen per month.
» Reject a pledge to cut annual increases in welfare spending by 220 billion yen, which the government also abandoned last month.
