[Title] Press Conference by Prime Minister Ishiba

[Opening statement by Prime Minister Ishiba]

Thank you all for coming to this press conference. Yesterday, after undergoing various revisions, the draft budget for fiscal 2025 was passed by the House of Councillors and enacted. I wish to express my deep and heartfelt appreciation to all those involved for their hard work and cooperation. Thank you all very much.

As I begin my statement, I wish to once again offer my profound apologies for the problem that has arisen because of my distribution of gift certificates. On March 3, as reported by the press, in advance of a dinner I held with 15 members of the House of Representatives from my own political party who had won a Diet seat for the first time, I had gift certificates that I had prepared using my own personal funds -- my own money -- delivered to their offices in lieu of a souvenir.

My intention in delivering the gift certificates was that these lawmakers had each traveled a long, hard road to get elected, and beyond that, I wanted to acknowledge and express my appreciation to their family members who had supported them throughout that time.

I have been called out repeatedly over the years for not being good at socializing, for not holding enough social dinners, and so on. Claims that I am a cheapskate or tight-fisted when it comes to money have also dogged me for some time. I think a large part of this controversy stems from me being concerned with those kinds of comments. Now I must recognize unequivocally that my actions were entirely out of touch with the sensibilities of the public on this matter.

I have been thoroughly upbraided and admonished from all sides for this, with people saying, "You've never done that kind of thing before; what got into you?" or that I mustn't stray from what sets me apart from others. Indeed, it may well be that I had lost sight of myself. Regarding those sentiments in a forthright and sincere manner, I have been reflecting deeply on my actions, and I have renewed my determination to act in ways well-aligned with the thinking of the citizens and face any misgivings held by the public without pretense. I will continue to work to the best of my ability to earn the trust of the Japanese people. I ask for your patience and understanding as I pursue that course.

Regarding what is called the politics and money issue, last year, we set in place the legal measures paving the way for abolishing policy activity expenses, for publicly disclosing the use of the allowance covering research, public relations, and accommodation expenses, for having any remaining funds returned, and for establishing at an early time a third-party organization [to monitor and audit political funds] based on the amended Political Funds Control Act.

As for corporate and organizational donations, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), under the principle of "disclosing rather than banning," submitted a bill to enhance transparency and improve public disclosure, and the Diet has conducted earnest deliberations on that bill. As of the end of March this year, meaning as of yesterday, this bill had not yet been put to a vote.

However, I have been informed that an agreement was reached yesterday at the working level among the LDP, Komeito, and the Democratic Party For the People on the points that, "party branches that do not submit their financial reports online will become ineligible to receive corporate or organizational donations," and that "the threshold [for disclosing corporate and organizational donations] in the bill to enhance transparency will be lowered drastically, from amounts over 10 million yen to amounts over 50,000 yen." Based on this agreement, we will continue our consultations with the various political parties and factions and proceed with sincere deliberations so that a final resolution emerges.

My administration takes the matter of how people are living their daily lives very seriously, and we have three major areas of focus in this regard.

During the Diet deliberations on the draft budget for fiscal year 2025, the original draft budget was amended for the first time in 29 years in the House of Representatives and for the first time ever in the House of Councillors. In some sense, this can properly be called a historic situation.

We recently considered undertaking a review of high-cost medical expense benefits in an effort to make the system more sustainable, but we received comments that our process for considering this matter failed to take a sufficiently careful and thorough approach. Reflecting thoughtfully on those appraisals, we will postpone implementation until autumn and give it further consideration, utilizing a more thoroughgoing process.

After the draft budget passed the House of Representatives, it came to be amended further, and I apologize to the legislature and to the members of the Diet for this situation. At the same time, I believe the fact that we were able to arrive at a final resolution that incorporated the results of the policy discussions that transcended party lines as well as what was deliberated on the floor of the Diet, including a number of points at issue other than the matter of high-cost medical expense benefits, is the result of a "deliberative Diet." The Government will continue to work to realize thoroughgoing deliberations and a "deliberative Diet."

Making the most of the supplementary budget for fiscal 2024 and the budget for fiscal 2025, we will address difficulties in people's daily lives squarely and earnestly. We will make all-out efforts to achieve results regarding our three prioritized points.

First, we will address the sense of unease harbored by the citizens and eliminate various areas of anxiety. Second, we will prepare an environment in which people can realize self-fulfillment as they please so that they can feel certain in their confidence that tomorrow will be better than today. Third, we will press forward with measures that develop the nation and our various regions in both societal and economic terms and raise people's awareness of regional areas.

Through these efforts, my administration hopes to, together with all of you, bring about what we can call an "enjoyable Japan." With the population shrinking, and it is declining at an unprecedented pace, I hope that people from one corner of the nation to the other who are face to face with population decline will engage in new challenges and come to return to their own "enjoyable" regional areas.

Addressing the various sources of worry that people feel, we will work to cultivate daily living that is characterized by safety and security.

Some among us are unable to make ends meet even working full time. It is incumbent upon the nation to make it possible for such people to feel a sense of security as they go about their lives. This low level of income is exacerbating the labor shortage seen in local economies outside our major urban centers. It is a situation we cannot overlook or shrug off. Mindful of that, by May we will compile effective measures aimed at raising the minimum wage.

As we work towards the establishment of the Disaster Management Agency in fiscal 2026, we have been holding high-level expert meetings bringing together specialists in the disaster management field and advancing our consideration of various areas, paying heed to the lessons learned through, among other examples, the Great East Japan Earthquake as well as the Noto Peninsula Earthquake and Noto heavy rainfall disasters. Through the budget just enacted as well, we will make steady strides forward in our preparations, including by doubling the personnel and budget of the the Cabinet Office's Disaster Management Bureau, with personnel expanding from 110 people to 220 and the budget increasing from 7.3 billion to 14.6 billion yen.

We will also work to dramatically improve the environment at evacuation centers. During the Great East Japan Earthquake, some evacuation centers had people sleeping all crowded together in school gymnasiums, but when forest fires broke out in Ofunato recently, tents that ensured privacy were set up in the evacuation centers there, resulting in substantially better living conditions.

We have designated the fire in Ofunato as a severe local disaster, and we will proceed step by step in restoring the lush forests that the area enjoyed before the fire. Forest fires have broken out in succession in various locations, including in Ehime and Okayama Prefectures. We will do our utmost to implement more effective fire prevention and fire extinguishing measures.

In consideration of the road cave-in accident that occurred in the city of Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, this month we began conducting a nationwide special survey of our sewage systems, through which we are identifying priority areas. We have taken the decision to expend 61.5 billion yen of reserve funds to mount responses to road cave-ins and extraordinarily heavy snowfall. We will continue to orchestrate these responses taking care not to have any omissions or oversights.

We will respond meticulously to the concerns of the public regarding the dangers posed by aging sewage systems and other infrastructure and the need to renovate it. With an eye to making steady progress in preventing and mitigating disasters and enhancing national resilience, we will further accelerate our pace until now, and by roughly June we will formulate a mid-term plan for implementing measures to make the nation's infrastructure more resilient, at a scale of approximately 20 trillion yen over five years.

In addressing the matter of what are often called "shady part-time jobs," in our funding, we have raised the budgetary allocation to 1.73 billion yen, an increase of 1.3 billion yen over the fiscal 2024 figure, which we will use to bolster public safety measures, including our initiatives to address "shady part-time jobs" and similar efforts.

We will undertake a fundamental strengthening of our defense capabilities. In terms of the budget, the amount was increased by 749.8 billion yen compared to fiscal 2024 to total 8.4748 trillion yen. We will increasingly promote security cooperation with like-minded countries. This will receive a total of 8.1 billion yen, an increase of 3.1 billion yen over the previous year's budget.

The social security system is the foundation for leading our daily lives with peace of mind. In the context of our declining birthrate and aging population, we will work to dispel worries about the future felt by those in the "employment ice-age generation" [who have encountered career challenges as a result of entering the workforce when there were few job opportunities] as well as those in younger generations and allay concerns over the insurance premium burden to be shouldered by the public.

We have set up a consultative body comprising three parties, the LDP, Komeito, and the Japan Restoration Party, to discuss reforms to social security, including how to reduce the burden shouldered by the public. There, we will give ample consideration to this matter within the budget formulation process taking place until the end of the calendar year, and we will fast-track initiatives that are able to be implemented early to commence execution in fiscal 2026.

Achieving wage increases is a matter of great urgency, and also a foundational matter in enabling people to feel in a meaningful way that they are living prosperous lives. I have said this repeatedly, but our growth strategy pivots specifically on wages rising. Under that recognition, we must as an urgent matter realize wage increases that keep pace with rising prices and have such increases firmly take root in society.

In this year's first set of results released by RENGO, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, for the annual spring wage bargaining negotiations, wages were scheduled to rise by 5.46 percent, improving upon last year's figure by 0.18 percentage points. As for this wage increase of 5.46 percent that surpasses last year's figure, for small- and medium-sized labor unions at small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this year marks the first time for the increase to exceed 5 percent in 33 years. More precisely, the wages in those labor unions are set to rise by 5.09 percent, a 0.67 percentage point improvement over the degree of increase negotiated in 2024. The second set of wage bargaining results for 2025, the most recent figures to be released, indicates wage hikes of 5.40 percent, with small- and medium-sized labor unions reporting wage increases of 4.92 percent.

I believe that the Government's measures thus far, including for example support to improve productivity, an effort funded through the supplementary budget, as well as cooperation between the public and private sectors, have begun to bear fruit.

To make this momentum spread to every corner of the nation, we will fully mobilize our policies in order to provide robust support for wage increases at SMEs and small-scale employers. We will press forward in having price increases passed through to product prices in a smooth manner within contracts concluded with the national government and local governments, which are of high importance to SMEs and small-scale employers in rural areas. Towards that end, we will formulate a new policy package by June and make effective use of our system for investigating low-bid prices. To improve productivity at SMEs and small-scale businesses, centered on the service sector, in May we will formulate a "Plan to Promote Labor-Saving Investments," which will include productivity improvement goals for 12 business categories, including food services and hospitality. We will establish and set into motion a nationwide support system through which we dispatch experts to SMEs' and small-scale business operators' workplaces. By June, we will formulate a new package of measures related to business succession and mergers and acquisitions and implement it vigorously, with a view to bolstering the managerial base of SMEs and small-scale employers.

As we await the effects of rising wages, we must intensify our responses to price increases. To address the sharp rise in food and energy prices, we have already begun to provide each low-income household with benefits of 30,000 yen per household, which is increased by 20,000 yen for each child.

As for our grants to local regions for prioritized assistance to address the rise in prices in each local area, the Government recently made its first round of grant decisions for all 47 prefectures and for 1,250 municipalities. We will be effective in ensuring that citizens receive support that is appropriate for their local circumstances, such as responses well-tailored to the rise in prices for energy as well as for rice and other food items.

We will continue to make use of assistance to dampen down fuel price fluctuations to bring the retail price of gasoline down to around 185 yen per liter as the national average. As for what is commonly referred to as "abolishing provisional tax rates," I understand that, in an effort to resolve various challenges such as ensuring stable financial resources, there will be an acceleration of the sincere consultations among the various political parties, with the aim of drafting the necessary legal amendments.

As the price of rice remains high, to address this, we have taken the decision to make use of government stockpiles of rice. Recently the first round of bidding was held, with conveyance of 140,000 tons to the delivery service companies affiliated with the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (Zen-Noh) and other parties already underway. The second round of bidding took place last week. By providing a stable supply to consumers, the rising price of rice is expected to settle down. We will pay careful attention to movement in the price, and should the need arise, we will take further responses without hesitation or wavering.

Regarding our review of disincentives for second earners to earn more than 1.03 million yen annually, known as the "1.03 million yen barrier," with the enactment of the fiscal 2025 budget and various tax laws, we have taken the decision to increase the basic deduction, which will apply to more than 80 percent of all taxpayers. Taking that together with the original government proposal, income tax reductions from 20,000 to 40,000 yen per person will be implemented, affecting approximately 56 million people. We will continue with our consideration of the matter with a view to increasing the amount of deductions and so on in a timely way going forward, bearing in mind the price increases and other factors.

This is the year in which full-scale support for children and child-rearing is implemented. In addition to expanding the provision of an annual 120,000 yen child allowance to also cover high school students, from April we will raise the benefit rate to the equivalent of 100 percent of take-home pay when childcare leave is taken by both parents at the same time. We anticipate as many as 700,000 people receiving these benefits. In cases in which people choose to reduce their total work hours because of child-rearing, they will be eligible to receive benefits the equivalent of 10 percent of their wages.

In Japanese, one of the kanji characters used to write "human resources" is the character for "treasure." In order to open up the future for the younger generation and bring about a society that treasures human resources, we have done away with the income requirements needed to receive an annual 118,800 yen in benefits, which has been a preliminary measure among our efforts to make senior high school effectively free. Some 870,000 people will be covered by this expansion. From fiscal 2025, we anticipate the system covering approximately 3.30 million high school students nationwide. Later, we will lay out a broad outline of the system in our Basic Policies 2025 document and flesh out the specifics of the system during the fiscal 2026 budget formulation process, with the aim of raising the amount of assistance to 457,000 yen per year for students at private senior high schools, beginning in fiscal 2026.

We will first work to make school lunches effectively free by targeting elementary schools serving some 6 million students nationwide.

We will continue to implement responses to rising prices seamlessly, in accordance with the situation.

We will aim to have young people and women work towards self-actualization to the extent they wish.

To give some examples, we will vigorously support in every corner of Japan attempts by young people enrolled in universities or technical colleges to found startups and efforts to aiming to significantly expand the number of women working as regular employees through the use of roughly 100 billion yen in subsidies to advance workers' careers. We will promote the preparation of environments that facilitate self-actualization by citizens and bring about regional areas that are regarded by young people and women as desirable places to live.

With the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and with other technological innovations forging ahead, dramatic transformations are taking place in the nature of people's work. Mindful of this, we will provide support at a scale of 100 billion yen to people who undertake reskilling or retraining as they set out to qualify for a new kind of job.

We will implement reforms to the system, including establishing benefits for education and training leave, which will pay a certain portion of a worker's wages when taking leave to undergo education or training. Through this, we will set in motion an arrangement providing well-tailored support to people in a wide variety of circumstances.

We will press forward vigorously with efforts to achieve "Regional Revitalization 2.0" as "the Reiwa Era remodeling of the Japanese archipelago" to raise people's awareness of our regional areas. When I say "Regional Revitalization 2.0," I mean something entirely new, different from the initial "Regional Revitalization" initiative. This new endeavor will bring about new encounters and realizations, as well as the dreams and possibilities that arise from them, causing young people and women to regard their lives as truly enjoyable. I will repeat myself here in saying that we will create regional areas that young people and women regard as desirable places to live.

Of the 100 billion yen allocated to regional revitalization grants in the supplementary budget for fiscal 2024, we will select new projects valued at roughly 60 billion yen. The fiscal 2025 budget also incorporates 200 billion yen, a clean doubling based on the initial budget, which we will rapidly and effectively roll into execution, providing robust backing for independent efforts made by local areas.

Last month, I visited places in Fukushima and Nagano Prefectures that are on the front lines of regional revitalization. While there, I once again felt the potential of our regional areas and I renewed my determination to vigorously promote our Vision for Regional Innovation and Revitalization.

In Fukushima, I visited the research and development facility of a robot manufacturing company. I was deeply impressed by the passion of the managers working on catalyzing innovation. We will provide robust support for attempts in regional areas to foster innovation through cooperation between diverse entities, such as cases of collaboration with technical colleges having strengths in AI or robotics technology.

I also visited the city of Ina in Nagano Prefecture. I felt very acutely that daily life in Ina is truly becoming markedly more convenient, thanks to the use of new technologies such as vehicles equipped to handle online medical consultations and drone-based shopping assistance. We will work assertively and effectively to improve the living environments of regional areas that make use of digital and new technologies.

In order to bolster Japan's growth potential and earning potential into the future, by fiscal 2030, we will provide over 10 trillion yen in public support for the AI and semiconductor sectors and attract more than 50 trillion yen in public-private investments over the next decade.

Insofar as advanced semiconductors and AI data centers hold the key to future growth, we will mount a powerful push to boost domestic investment in these areas. To advance step by step towards achieving our investment goals, we will implement support at a scale of 1.9 trillion yen through the supplementary budget for fiscal 2024 and so on, as well as through the fiscal 2025 budget.

There was a time when Japan was called a semiconductor powerhouse. That Japan is now in the circumstances we all know. But, we will battle it out in international competition to be at the very forefront of the world in the new era.

We will launch an Escort Runner System for Regional Revitalization, which harnesses the experiences of civil servants working at national government ministries and agencies in Kasumigaseki to provide assistance to municipalities. That system makes it possible to provide various kinds of support in a flexible manner, whether it be in Tokyo, on location in a rural part of the country, or through online consultations. Despite the application period being only two weeks long, some 200 municipalities from Hokkaido to Okinawa raised their hands to apply. Meanwhile, we also received applications from 250 national civil servants representing almost every government office, from young professionals to managers.

During the first round, national civil servants appointed as Regional Revitalization Support Officers will thoroughly provide carefully-considered escort runner-type support in a thoroughly kindly way to a total of 60 cities, towns, and villages around the country. They must make a point of thoroughly providing carefully-considered support in a thoroughly kindly way.

This is not something only for government offices to do. I would like to see private sector companies also expanding upon these efforts. I aim to make the network of people supporting our rural areas even larger and more impactful. In the vision I have, I want to fully exploit technologies such as telecommuting to create a society in which we respect people as treasures.

Today is April 1, and on April 13, the curtain will finally open on Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan. I very much hope that the Expo draws visitors from a wide range of generations from both within Japan and overseas.

When the previous Osaka Expo was held, the Osaka Expo of 1970, I was in the second year of junior high school in Tottori Prefecture. I think that for people now in their 60s or 70s, the 1970 Osaka Expo left a powerful impression on them.

Everyone from seniors to youngsters, visiting from not only Japan but also around the world, will come to the Expo and forge their hopes for a new Japan and discover an "enjoyable Japan." I also wholeheartedly look forward to visitors coming to the venue site on the island of Yumeshima in Osaka, but not letting their experience end there. I hope they will also think, 'you know, I'd also like to visit Hokkaido after the Expo,' or 'I'd also like to go to Okinawa,' or 'I'd like to head over to Hokuriku.' I would be highly gratified if that kind of trend becomes widespread. Do, by all means, come visit the Expo.

Let me address the United States' additional tariffs on automobiles and other products announced last month. Japan is the top investor nation for the U.S., and in light of that fact, we will continue to strongly urge the United States to exempt Japan from these measures.

In addition, we will make a comprehensive investigation of the impact on our domestic industries and on employment and take all possible measures to address the situation, as needed. Should the United States' tariff measures be invoked, first of all, as a short-term response, we will immediately begin offering special consultation services at roughly 1,000 locations all around the country. At these special consultation service locations to be set up in 1,000 places nationwide, we will provide comprehensive and well-targeted information and counsel in response to SMEs' and small-scale business operators' concerns, worries, and inquiries.

Naturally, we expect that there will be cases in which business operations will be impacted. In consideration of this, we will take all possible steps to provide support, such as measures that address cash flow problems and measures to secure financial resources.

We want to vigorously support the expansion of sales by enhancing competitiveness through improvements in productivity and by developing new areas of business, and we have adopted that perspective in what is called the Mikata Project, a project already underway in which the Government, serving as an ally of businesses, takes the initiative from its side to pay visits to relevant factories and companies in order to get a grasp of the impact on them and then provide managerial advice while also introducing the various kinds of support measures available to them. We will expand this Mikata Project nationwide and accelerate our provision of assistance.

The Government will coordinate with the ruling coalition without delay regarding the specifics of possible response measures to these additional U.S. tariffs.

Making effective use of the budget for fiscal year 2025, which was enacted yesterday, my administration will sincerely address the issues people face in their daily lives and respond seamlessly and flexibly, consistent with social and economic trends, including, notably, rising prices. I ask sincerely and earnestly for the understanding and cooperation of the Japanese people.

I will end my opening statement here.