The government announced July 30 its plan to create an additional 9 million-plus jobs by 2020, but specific measures to achieve that goal are unclear.
The Strategy for the Rebirth of Japan, compiled at a meeting of the Council on National Strategy and Policy, is a road map toward achieving economic growth and ending deflation.
The plan calls for creating 9.44 million jobs, including more than 4.24 million in the priority areas of energy and medical services alone.
But concrete steps to achieve those goals were not defined.
The strategy, for example, said Japan will create a new, environment-related market worth more than 50 trillion yen ($639 billion) by 2020, which will produce an additional 1.4 million-plus jobs.
The figures are based on the assumption that the environment-related market will steadily grow every year through 2020.
But that scenario is far from guaranteed. Global competition is intensifying over solar panels and other environment-related products, and it remains unclear whether Japanese manufacturers will be able to compete.
The strategy said priority will be given to energy and medical services, as well as agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors, in compiling the budget.
The government plans to help companies develop innovative medicines, such as cancer treatments, and acquire a 50-percent share of the global storage battery market.
Still, leading pharmaceutical manufacturers are competing around the world to discover revolutionary drugs.
Success largely depends on research and development budgets, but Japan’s leading drugmaker, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., ranks outside the global top 10 in terms of sales.
“The strategy was compiled based on figures collected from government ministries,” said Hisashi Yamada, chief economist at the Japan Research Institute. “As a result, a growth scenario is lacking about how corporate profits will increase, how they will trickle down to households and how they will boost personal spending.”
The strategy will set the stage for the government to start a budget compilation in earnest for the next fiscal year.
“We will restructure the budget, beyond the boundaries of ministries and agencies, and mobilize all policy measures to fuel Japan’s growth once again,” Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said at the meeting on July 30.
The strategy calls for nominal economic growth of 3 percent and real growth of 2 percent annually on average between fiscal 2011 and 2020.
“All policy measures will be adopted to prevent a vicious cycle of deflation and the yen’s appreciation,” it also said.
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