2,000 wives of merchants and producers rally to call for consumption tax rate cut to 3 percent

About 2,000 wives of merchants and various producers converged on Tokyo's famous Hibiya Amphitheater on April 3 to prevent the consumption tax increase and call for its rate to be cut to three percent from its present five percent.

Women wearing aprons and paper hats of various colors with slogans and filled the open hall.

The rally was organized by the Women's Section of the National Federation of Merchant and Industrialist Organizations.

Participants took the microphone to express their anger at government policies which ignore small businesses and the self-employed.

An electronics supplier from Yamagata Prefecture complained about large electronics companies reducing orders and instead seeking production of parts in China, where the personnel cost for 10 workers equals that of one worker in Japan.

A woman from Saitama Prefecture expressed anger at KSD, a mutual aid insurer for small business owners, which used contributions from members for supporting the Liberal Democratic Party. She said much cheaper imported products deprived her of needlework jobs, and she now has to do the sewing for 35 yen apiece. When her husband was taken ill, she asked for KSD mutual aid payment, but her application was denied for the reason of deferred payment in contributions.

A woman from Hiroshima Prefecture, who works doing house cleaning with her husband, called for an adequate taxation for self-employed people in which the wife's wage can be deductible as cost from the income.

Expressing their anger at the corruption scandal involving KSD money donated to the Liberal Democratic Party, they called for the improvement of the national health insurance system.

After the rally, participants walked in demonstration toward the Diet building.

A new signature campaign is now under way to call for improved welfare for merchants and their wives. More than 50,000 signatures have been collected. (end)