Japan Opposition Ishin Draws Up Outline of 2nd Capital Plan

Osaka, Sept. 30 (Jiji Press)–A project team of opposition force Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) on Tuesday drew up an outline of planned legislation to establish a secondary capital that can substitute for Tokyo. The project “will be a key issue to discuss with the new president of the Liberal Democratic Party” to be elected Saturday, Nippon Ishin leader Hirofumi Yoshimura told reporters after a meeting of the team in the party headquarters in Osaka Prefecture’s namesake capital in western Japan. Yoshimura, governor of the prefecture, recently said that approval of the secondary capital project would be a prerequisite for his party’s possible participation in the ruling coalition of the LDP and Komeito. The legislation will not be submitted to the expected extraordinary session of the Diet, the country’s parliament, Yoshimura said Tuesday, explaining that the party will prioritize discussions with other parties including the LDP. In the outline, the team defined the secondary capital as an economic center comparable to the Tokyo area that can function as the capital in the event that Tokyo becomes unable to do so. As conditions for a secondary capital, the outline said that such an area must have special wards set up under the law for special districts in large metropolitan areas and that no large-scale disaster is unlikely to hit Tokyo and it simultaneously. A secondary capital, which would be designated by the prime minister based on a proposal from a prefecture excluding Tokyo, would be given greater tax resources and allowed to take powerful deregulatory measures to boost economic activities, according to the outline. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]