The outline of the government's policy for regional revitalization may identify the right goals to halt the population flight to the Tokyo area from other parts of the country. The question is how effective the measures in the package will be in achieving them.

According to the latest statistics, Japan's population at the beginning of January fell by a record 271,000 from a year earlier to 126.16 million, for the sixth consecutive annual decline. The population declined in 41 of the nation's 47 prefectures. The three major metropolitan areas — the greater Tokyo area including Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa, the Nagoya area encompassing Aichi, Gifu and Mie prefectures, and the Kansai area covering Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Nara — accounted for more than half of Japan's total population for the ninth year in a row. But it was only the Tokyo area, where nearly 28 percent of the population is concentrated, that saw a year-on-year increase.

The policy outline for regional revitalization, adopted by the Abe administration late last month, warns that the flight to Tokyo may accelerate as medical and nursing care needs expand along with the aging of the population. It says a recovery in consumer spending following the slump caused by the consumption tax hike in April last year remains a mixed picture across regions, while a manpower shortage is becoming acute in some regions outside of the big metropolitan areas.

The government's policy seeks to address both the depopulation and lagging growth of the rural economies. It calls on prefectures and municipalities across the country to devise five-year plans by next March 31 to fight depopulation in their areas, which the national government plans to support with new types of grants to be created beginning in fiscal 2016.

But in terms of specifics to achieve these goals, the outline appears to compile measures and programs already floated by different ministries and is short on fresh ideas. The overall size of the new subsidies to support the initiatives by local governments has not been specified, nor has it been decided how the national government will pay for the fresh subsidies.

One of the features of the policy outline is its call for supporting elderly residents in the greater Tokyo area who are willing to resettle in other parts of the country amid the forecasts that the capital area will face a serious shortage in medical and nursing care services. It follows up on a recent proposal by the private think tank Japan Policy Council to encourage a migration of elderly people and identified municipalities across the country that it estimated will have surplus capacity for newcomers from metropolitan areas needing medical and nursing care.

The government may view the proposal as a solution to both the population flight to Tokyo and the revitalization of regional economies, in that it would create jobs in the municipalities that accept the elderly newcomers. The policy outline calls for launching model projects in some municipalities as early as in fiscal 2016.

However, the government should stop and think if the idea would really work as a policy. In a recent Kyodo News survey of prefectural governors, only about 30 percent expressed support for the idea. While a large part of the respondents did not make their position clear, many governors cited the concern that migration of the elderly population could leave the host municipalities stuck with huge bills for medical and nursing care services. The policy outline does not appear to answer to such concerns on the part of local authorities. It's also not clear if the wishes of the elderly population are taken into consideration in promoting the migration idea.

The key to invigorating the regional economies and halting the population exodus to Tokyo is creating jobs that can keep young people closer to their hometowns. A new measure approved in the Diet reduces corporate taxation on companies that transfer their headquarters out of Tokyo, and the government should explore other means to promote business investments outside the big metropolitan areas.