Along with the ¥14 trillion supplementary budget for fiscal 2009 designed to stimulate the Japanese economy, the government has a long-term strategy to attain economic growth. It envisages increasing the nation's gross domestic product by ¥120 trillion and creating 4 million jobs by 2020. For the fiscal 2009-2011 period, the government has the goal of creating 1.4 million to 2 million jobs by increasing domestic demand by ¥40 trillion to ¥60 trillion.
The strategy has three pillars — a low-carbon revolution, improvement of medical and nursing care services and the development of tourism industry. It calls for the attainment of a 20-fold increase in solar-power generation capacity by 2020 and the early installation of solar panels in government buildings; efforts to establish international standards for battery chargers for electric-powered cars; and the introduction of small (100-seat) jet airliners to encourage tourism.
The ideas included in the strategy are not necessarily innovative. What is important is that the government implement concrete measures to achieve the individual goals. Unfortunately, the strategy lacks a long-range vision of how to fairly distribute economic, cultural and political functions nationwide.