Cabinet approval for SME Charter promoted by popular movements: JCP Koike

Japan Press Weekly

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Cabinet approval for SME Charter promoted by popular movements: JCP Koike

The Kan Cabinet on June 18 approved a Charter for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), acknowledging SMEs as a main player in the Japanese economy.

Following the decision, Japanese Communist Party Policy Commission Chair Koike Akira issued a statement that praises the cabinet approval of the charter as a major achievement of SME owners' efforts while referring to two points for its improvement. The statement is as follows.

The approval has been achieved by the persistent movements by such groups as the National Conference of the Association of Small Business Entrepreneurs and the National Federation of Traders and Producers Organizations.

The Charter highly values the role of SMEs as a driving force of and a main player in Japan's economy. It also states the government will commit to pushing forward with the implementation of policies to support SMEs' businesses.

We feel that this commitment could lead to a change in policies that previously have devalued SMEs' importance in the economy. The JCP therefore will push ahead with the change so that SMEs will be fully backed by national policies.

At the same time, we must emphasize two points for improvement of the Charter.

First, the Charter fails to include wording that clearly support fundamental change from the current policies to ones that earnestly support SMEs' operations.

The Charter recognizes the problems in present SME policies, including placing a disproportionate emphasis on the role of large corporations and putting implicit faith in them. However, the point is whether the government will really reverse the past policies based on market fundamentalism ruled by the law of the jungle. In this regard, it is imperative to thoroughly revise the Small and Medium Enterprise Basic Law, which was adversely revised by the support of all political parties, except for the JCP, in 1999.

Second, the Charter should be approved by the Diet.

Policies that support SMEs must be promoted by both the present and successive governments. The JCP therefore calls for the Charter to be unanimously adopted in the Diet so that we can elevate it as a fundamental national policy, and will continue to make efforts to achieve this.

-Akahata June 19, 2010