TOKYO, Oct 3 (NNN-NHK) – Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, in a policy speech, marking the start of an extraordinary parliamentary session today, vowed to reboot the nation’s hard-hit tourism industry, by targeting increased spending by visitors.
Kishida said, a new target of increasing foreign visitors’ total spending to more than five trillion yen (about 35 billion U.S. dollars) annually, would be set, with the government taking advantage of the Japanese yen’s sudden depreciation, which inflates the purchasing power of foreign guests.
“We will maximise the advantage of the weak yen to recuperate the Japanese economy,” Kishida said in his speech.
While Japan’s export-led economy should, in theory, be cheering a weaker yen, as a weaker yen sees exporters’ overseas profits increase, when repatriated on favourable exchange rates, and overall competitiveness enhanced in international markets, a persistently weak yen does have its downside.
As a weaker yen pushes up already inflated import prices, with the country reliant on imports for 90 percent of its energy requirements, Kishida said, the government was poised to combat soaring energy costs for resource-poor Japan by taking “unprecedented steps to alleviate the burden on households and companies.”
Regarding ballooning costs for natural gas prices across the globe, that could see electricity bills spike in Japan between now and spring, Kishida said, measures would be put in place to lessen the impact on households and corporations, but failed to explain in detail how the government planned to achieve this.
As the public is already feeling the pinch of higher prices, Kishida also announced government plans to encourage wage increases, by investing one trillion yen (6.89 billion dollars) in human resource development in “promising fields” over five years.
The extraordinary session today marks the first opportunity for a fully-fledged parliamentary debate between the ruling coalition and the opposition camp, after July’s upper house election.
The parliamentary session will last for 69 days through Dec 10, and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition (LDP) and opposition parties, will engage in a heated debate over a number of hot-button issues.
These include, but are not limited to, the LDP’s economic proposals, to rescue the world’s third-largest economy from the downside effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as, from a stark lack of economic drivers.
This is amid a continued hollowing-out of the workforce, as the society here continues to simultaneously age and shrink, with social welfare costs skyrocketing commensurate with Japan’s aging society.
With the LDP’s support rate sliding in recent polls, Kishida and his party will also be quizzed by the opposition bloc, over its ties to the Unification Church, known for coercing massive amounts of money from its followers, in return for “spiritual” or “karmic” benefits, following the party’s promise to sever ties to the group.
Earlier last month, an internal probe by the LDP revealed about half of the LDP’s lawmakers had ties to the controversial organisation, formally known as as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
Kishida, henceforth, will be cross-examined by opposition parties over the matter, in the extraordinary parliamentary session, amid mounting concerns by opposition parties and the public that the organisation has been seeking to influence politics here by deepening its ties with the LDP.
