PM Ishiba Vows to Revitalize Japan at Start of 2025

Jiji Press

11:36 JST, January 1, 2025

Tokyo (Jiji Press)—Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed to revitalize the country in a New Year’s message issued Wednesday.

Japan’s falling population is a “silent contingency,” he said, expressing a sense of crisis at the declining vitality of the country’s economy and regional areas.

“We will restore vitality to Japan as a whole,” Ishiba said, adding that his administration will “rectify the excessive concentration in Tokyo and build a Japan where attractive regions and cities are interconnected” by setting his Regional Revitalization 2.0 initiative in motion.

In addition, the prime minister pledged to help promote pay hikes and corporate capital spending in order to create a “growth-oriented economy” led by wage increases and investment.

Ishiba also said that the government will make “the utmost possible preparations” for natural disasters and accelerate work to establish the “disaster management agency” by the March 2027 end of fiscal 2026.

Citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear and missile development, Ishiba said that “we will protect Japan’s (national) interests” by promoting diplomacy and national defense “as two sides of the same coin.”

Ishiba’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito, suffered a major setback in last October’s House of Representatives general election to lose their combined majority in the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament.

On this, Ishiba said in the New Year’s message that he will carefully listen to the opinions of other parties in an effort to reach the “broadest possible” consensus.

“I will sincerely and humbly” work on ensuring the safety and security of the people, he also said.