Business leaders to prepare guidelines for bribing politicians

Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) Chair Okuda Hiroshi announced at a press conference on May 12 that it will establish a committee to determine guidelines for political donations.

The committee will be set up in June to evaluate political parties' policies and achievements and create guidelines for its member companies to make political donations to parties and lawmakers.

Since early this year, Nippon Keidanren has been calling for the consumption tax rate to be gradually increased to 16 percent from the current five percent and new cooperation to be established with politicians to realize "reform".

Keidanren (Japan Federation of Economic Organizations), a predecessor of Nippon Keidanren, until 1993 assigned its member firms political donations, but stopped doing so due to the revelations of corrupt relations between politicians and business circles. (end)