Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will promise to secure nominal economic growth of at least 2 percent by fiscal 2006 in his policy package for the upcoming Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, a key aide said Sunday.
"The prime minister will pledge to get the country out of the deflationary phase and target nominal growth in the 2 percent range by fiscal 2006," Hidenao Nakagawa, head of the LDP's Diet affairs committee, said on Fuji TV on the eve of the start of official campaigning for the Sept. 20 race.
Senior LDP members, including Executive Council Chairman Mitsuo Horiuchi, an anti-Koizumi faction leader who has decided to support the prime minister in the election, had urged Koizumi to include the nominal growth target in his policy package.