In news– Recently, Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida launched a flagship council to work out a strategy to tackle wealth disparities and redistribute wealth to households, in what he describes as a “new form of capitalism.”.
About Wealth Redistribution Council-
- It will be responsible for strategizing how to tackle wealth disparities and redistribute wealth to households.
- The council will focus on the creation of a “virtuous cycle of growth and distribution” of wealth, which was also the pillar of his election campaign.
- According to him, this can be accomplished through an updated version of the 1960 “income-doubling plan” behind Japan’s rise as an economic power.
- It will also focus on post-covid economic recovery.
- The measures proposed by the panel will then shape Kishida’s policies if the ruling bloc, led by his Liberal Democratic Party, emerges as the victor of the upcoming polls.
- This new will replace an older growth strategy council, which was set up last year by his predecessor Yoshihide Suga.
Its composition-
- The panel, headed by Kishida(PM), will comprise a mix of ministers and representatives from the private sectors.
- At least seven private-sector members are women.
- It will consist of both veterans and newer faces with varied backgrounds.
- The panel is expected to hold its first meeting on October 26.
Plan of the new PM-
- The new PM vowed to help ordinary households — families with children, women, workers without full-time status and students.
- This was the rationale behind the ambitious 30 trillion yen spending package he proposed to aid economic recovery.
- Apart from this, he has also been a proponent of a flat 20 per cent tax on financial income, which will primarily apply to the wealthy.
- To address the issue of stagnant incomes, Kishida proposed an “income-doubling plan, similar to an initiative launched by former Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda in 1960.
- His aim is to combine former Japanese premier Shinzo Abe’s pro-growth policies, also dubbed ‘Abenomics’, with heightened efforts to move wealth from companies to households.
Source: Indian Express
