Factbox: Main steps in Japan's growth strategy

TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to raise incomes by 3 percent annually and set up special economic zones to attract foreign businesses in the third tranche of measures aimed at boosting growth in the world's third-biggest economy.

Abe is also considering a push for public pensions and other public funds - a pool of $2 trillion - to increase returns by raising investment in equities, a government draft growth strategy showed, confirming a Reuters report.

The following are main steps in the growth program, including those already announced by Abe or his advisors, to be approved by the cabinet next week.

PUBLIC FUNDS

- To seek experts' views on whether public pensions and other public funds should seek higher returns by raising their investment in equities, and aim to reach a conclusion by autumn.

INCOME

- Targets annual gains of 3 percent or more in gross national income per capita, which would be an increase of 1.5 million yen ($15,000) over 10 years from around 3.84 million yen in 2012.

PRIVATE SECTOR/INVESTMENT

- Set up special economic zones to attract foreign businesses. Review regulations and tax systems and take necessary action in the zones to create an international business environment.

- Aim to boost the total value of infrastructure projects that involve private finance initiatives (PFIs) and public-private partnership (PPP) by 3 times to 12 trillion yen ($120.5 billion) over the next 10 years by steps including the selling of rights to operate some facilities such as airports and expressways.

- Focus on boosting domestic private investment over the next three years and target for private-sector investment of 70 trillion yen annually, the level before the 2008 financial crisis and up about 10 percent from current levels.

- Promote business start-ups and consider steps to boost investment in them.

- Pledge to minimize investment of government funds in firms to avoid bailouts of "zombie" companies that are failing.

FREE TRADE

- Double the balance of inward foreign direct investment to 35 trillion yen by 2020.

- Hit a target of 70 percent of exports covered by free trade deals by 2018, compared with around 19 percent, by pushing the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership (TPP) and other trade deals with the European Union, China and South Korea, and aim to create an Asia-Pacific free trade area.

- Triple infrastructure exports to 30 trillion yen by 2020.

"COOL JAPAN"

- Triple overseas sales of "Cool Japan" content such as anime in five years.

- Aim to boost the number of foreign visitors to Japan to 20 million a year from about 8 million now.

LABOUR

- Promote the smooth shift of workers to growth sectors from mature business areas without creating unemployment.

- Review criteria for approval of permanent residency such as to shorten the duration of stay in Japan required to three years from five years to encourage high-skilled foreigners to keep working in the country.

AGRICULTURE

- Double farm, fisheries and marine exports to 1 trillion yen by 2020.

- Reduce rice production cost by an average of 40 percent in next 10 years.

- Boost exports of Japanese food including farm products, traditional cuisine and sweets to around 1 trillion yen by 2020 from about 450 billion yen.

WOMEN

- Set a goal of reducing the waiting list at day care centers to zero by 2017 to make it easier for women to work and raise children.

- Promote extending periods of childcare leave to last up to three years.

- Increase the employment rate of females aged 25 to 44 to 73 percent by 2020 from 68 percent.

HEALTH CARE

- Create a system similar to the National Institutes of Health in the United States to develop cutting-edge medical technologies.

- Submit legislation to revise the pharmaceutical law to shorten examination periods.

- Implement bold regulatory easing to speed up the examination process of medical technologies by allowing certification by third party private institutions, except for risky technologies such as cardiac pacemakers.

- Allow the sale over the Internet of most over-the-counter drugs as part of efforts to mobilize the Internet for growth.

ENERGY

- Boost power-related investment one and a half times to 30 trillion yen over the next decade.

- Speed up the process of making environment assessments of coal-fired electricity generating plants.

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-main-steps-japans-growth-strategy-105743829.html

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