Japan Press Weekly

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2012 July 25 - 31 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Keidanren Yonekura objects to government call to end dependence on nuclear power

Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) Chair Yonekura Hiromasa on July 30 expressed his strong objection to the government’s call for ending the nation’s dependence on nuclear power generation in its basic energy policy.

At the National Policy Unit’s meeting on a “revitalization strategy” on that day, Yonekura, a strong advocate of the construction of new nuclear power plants, stated, “The phrase ‘ending nuclear energy’ has not been clearly defined in the unit’s meeting. We need a persuasive explanation for this ambiguous expression.”

National Policy Minister Furukawa Motohisa responded to Yonekura by saying, “It presents an indication to reduce the level of dependence on nuclear energy as much as possible and to create a society without such dependence.” The Keidanren chair said in response, “It is getting things backwards to promote a revitalization strategy for the sake of breaking away from nuclear power.”

Asking for Yonekura’s understanding, Industry Minister Edano Yukio said that the phrase is consistent with the revitalization strategy, but the two sides remained as far apart as ever.

Finally, Hasegawa Yasuchika, chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai) settled the dispute by stressing that the phrase in question does not suggest “zero nuclear power plants.”