The Noda Cabinet on July 31 adopted the Japan Revitalization Policy, which incorporates the strategy for economic growth through fiscal 2020. It aims to achieve average economic growth of 3 percent nominally and 2 percent in real terms by focusing on eco-friendly industries, medical services, and agriculture and fisheries.
But the program fails to provide concrete means for achieving the goal. The government needs to work out a process that will ensure the desired end result. Even if such a process is clearly laid out, the government will have to overcome another hurdle — how to finance the revitalization program.
As a general theme of Japan's revitalization efforts, the program calls for creating a "new Japanese society" by overcoming the effects of the 3/11 disasters and the Fukushima nuclear crisis. It also said that the basic policy should be the transformation of the nation's industrial structure in order to "get away from reliance on nuclear energy."