Speech to the Foreign Correspondents'
Club of Japan

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for the kind invitation to speak here today. As you all know, I am campaigning as a candidate for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party, and I would like to share my thoughts with you on this occasion.

I firmly believe that the reforms under former Prime Minister Koizumi at the start of this new century have been successful and have enabled Japan to recover from the post-bubble recession. For Japan to maintain its position and to boost its competitiveness in the region, it is urgent that we continue to promote reform. At the same time, globalization has widened the gaps between the world's rich and poor, and created dangerous disparities in Japan as well. Many people are working hard, but still struggling to pay their bills. Under these circumstances, I ask myself, what should we statesmen do for the people and the economy of Japan? Amid the recent political chaos, I believe we have lost touch with people's real hopes and concerns, and therefore feel responsible for fixing this situation. I am committed to putting the people of Japan first and determined to change the trend of Japanese politics. In that sense, we should not allow the movement against Postal Service Privatization by the union of Democratic Party and The People's New Party.

There are two specific issues that I would like to tackle. First, I would like to make bold efforts to eliminate government waste and inefficiency. As you will recall, I served as Japan's first minister in charge of administrative and regulatory reform. In that role, I fought for the reform of government-affiliated corporations and cut expenditure to those corporations by two trillion yen. Reducing waste frees up resources that can be spent in areas matched to the needs of the Japanese people and goals for corporate and industrial competitiveness.

The second task I would like to undertake is comprehensive reform of our social welfare system, covering pensions, medical care and long-term care for the elderly. I will propose a sustainable and desirable vision for these services, and a strategy to match payments with benefits. My fundamental idea is that payments should be covered by insurance and the consumption tax. Of course, there will be costs. But such steps will ease people's concerns about the future and that will contribute to the long-term growth of the economy. I would like to designate the coming three years as a period of intensive reform toward these goals.

I believe that "reform" is the courage to change and that "conservatism" is resistance to change. With due consideration to people's lives, I plan to promote the two reforms I have outlined here. Thank you for your kind attention.