JCP exchanges views with 23,000 organizations on ways to solve economic crisis

Japanese Communist Party branches and bodies, which are promoting the party's emergency economic proposal, have so far exchanged views on the present economic crisis with 23,000 organizations, large and small, nationwide.

The JCP package which was announced on March 23 consists of three pillars: a consumption tax rate cut to three percent so as to boost people's purchasing power; a freeze on the series of adverse revisions to the nation's welfare system; and regulation of corporate restructuring and promotion of employment security plus job creation.

The JCP has brought the emergency proposal to economic organizations nationwide, ranging from the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives to prefectural business and agricultural organizations from Hokkaido to the north and the Kyushu region including Okinawa to the south. Among them were the local corporate association representing the traditional textile industry in Yonezawa City in northeastern Yamagata Prefecture and the Central Union of Tochigi Agricultural Co-operatives in Tochigi Prefecture.

Everywhere, business leaders with serious concerns about sagging personal consumption have shown favorable reactions to the JCP proposal.

The managing director of the prefectural association to promote Hokkaido local commercial activities agreed that people's anxiety about the future is one of the reasons for reduced personal spending. The leader of the local textile industry in Yonezawa blamed the increase of the consumption tax to five percent for the plunge in personal consumption. One of the executives of the Tochigi Agricultural Cooperative said, "We will see agriculture collapse unless something is done."

Receiving the JCP's first visit, a business leader in Yamanashi Prefecture, one of Tokyo's neighbors, didn't hide his surprise at the JCP visit and said, "The Liberal Democratic Party's dominance in receiving voters support is over."

JCP branches are also developing dialogues on the proposal at the grassroots level elsewhere in the nation. A JCP branch in Chiba prefecture visited local convenience stores, the leader of the local shopping district, the president of a cab company, and a nursing care facility for the elderly. (end)