The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has begun compiling measures to stem the growing number of suicides in Japan, according to ministry officials.

Under a three-year project through March 2004, the ministry will take countermeasures accounting for generational and regional differences in the population and develop new psychotropic drugs to help prevent suicides, the officials said.

According to a ministry survey, 30,226 people committed suicide last year, the third year in a row that the level has exceeded 30,000. The rise in unemployment is believed to be the main factor behind the deaths.