Nippon Keidanren urges Abe govt to mend ties with China, S. Korea
Mainchi Daily News | September 27, 2006
Nippon Keidanren urges Abe govt to mend ties with China, S. Korea
The Japan Business Federation, or Nippon Keidanren, on Tuesday urged the new government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to repair the country’s soured relations with China and South Korea.
It is the first time that the most powerful Japanese business lobby has made a written request for government efforts for fence-mending with the two neighbors.
Japan’s ties with China and South Korea have deteriorated substantially due to repeated visits to war-related Yasukuni Shrine by Junichiro Koizumi, Abe’s predecessor.
Mending the soured relations is believed to be very important for Japan to achieve its goal of concluding an economic partnership agreement with member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other Asian and Pacific-rim nations, including China and South Korea.
Nippon Keidanren also asked the Abe government to promote spending cuts in a bid to achieve a primary budget surplus by fiscal 2011 that ends in March 2012.
The business lobby, meanwhile, did not mention whether the 5 percent consumption tax rate should be raised, only saying that the government should study a full-fledged reform of Japan’s tax system with the aim of securing stable revenue to finance social security programs and reinforcing the country’s international competitiveness. (Jiji Press)
