Top economists remained divided Monday over whether Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" policies will bear fruit but all saw eye-to-eye on the need for deregulation and new growth strategies.
"You can only buy so much time with monetary policies," Yuichi Kodama, chief economist at Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co., told reporters during a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo.
"Abe needs to take bold steps on structural reform," Kodama said, including introducing corporate tax cuts and major deregulation in the agricultural, medical, educational and other industries.