This will be an important year for local governments across Japan as the Abe administration pushes a policy aimed at revitalizing the nation's regional economies. Under the five-year comprehensive strategy adopted by the administration, local governments are supposed to work out their own revitalization plans for review by the national government. The effectiveness of the local plans will hold the key when the central government decides on the allocation of a new type of grant to be distributed to local governments under the program.

It will be imperative for the heads of local government and their employees to correctly identify the problems and needs of their residents and areas, and give full play to their own ingenuity in working out the plans. Central government officials need to respect local initiatives and refrain from imposing uniform ideas about what revitalization efforts should be like when they assess the proposals.

The national government has already exhibited a tendency to impose ideas on local governments by suggesting that new grants be used, for example, to issue coupons for residents to use in local stores or to give one-time allowances to low-income households for purchasing kerosene.