Japan Press Weekly

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2013 October 30 - November 5 [POLITICS]

Harsher corporate competition will worsen people’s living conditions: JCP Shiokawa

The House of Representatives at its plenary session on October 29 began discussing a bill to strengthen industrial competitiveness, one of the key policies of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s growth strategy.

The bill aims to make Japan “the best nation in the world to engage in corporate activities” through regulatory reform.

The bill will give shape to the Abe strategy within the next five years. If enacted, it will enable individual corporations to apply for the removal of regulations which corporations regard as obstructions to their activities.

Japanese Communist Party representative Shiokawa Tetsuya took the floor in opposition to the bill.

He pointed out that successive Japanese governments have promoted policies to relax regulations in various fields, including the retail industry and the job market, in response to demands from big businesses and the United States. This hurt local economies, increased social inequality, and led to the present decline in domestic demand. Large enterprises accelerated their move to seek demand outside Japan which escalated the hollowing out of the Japanese economy.

Shiokawa stressed, “The government support for large corporations to enhance their competitiveness won’t do anything to improve people’s living conditions.”