Tokyo share prices are on shaky ground. While the Nikkei 225 Stock Average has managed to recover from the deep slump it was in from March to mid-May, spending the whole time below 8,000 but trading in the upper half of the 7,000 range -- the key index remains far below 14,000, the level it was at when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in April 2001.
On May 14, the government came up with a 13-point package of measures for structurally reforming and revitalizing the stock market. The proposed steps include moving up the date when corporate employee pension funds can start returning the pension assets being managed on the government's behalf, raising the upper limit on contributions allowable under the defined-contribution pension scheme, and reforming the securities tax. Efforts are now under way to put those measures into force.
The ruling coalition compiled its own batch of emergency financial and economic measures on May 6. A group of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers led by Lower House Representative Koji Omi, in a bid to increase individual participation in the stock market, launched a campaign called "Buy Japan's Tomorrow," under which it urged the prime minister and his Cabinet to invest in stocks and the public to follow suit. In Japan, individual investors account for a much lower portion of the market action than in other industrialized nations. Given that Japanese firms are accelerating efforts to unwind cross-held shares, expectations are high that individual shareholders will surpass them as the key players in the market. The lawmakers' campaign seems very timely.