JCP Shii speaks before Osaka business leaders

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

JCP Shii speaks before Osaka business leaders

The Japanese Communist Party Osaka Prefectural Committee on April 10 held a meeting with business leaders in the City of Osaka with JCP Chair Shii Kazuo as speaker. About 470 people, including corporate presidents, labor union members, and local government administrators, including the Yao City vice-mayor, the Nose Town mayor, and a former city assembly chair, attended the meeting.

Shii’s speech was entitled, “How to defend people’s lives from the economic crisis.” Shii said that a growing number of people are in poverty and Japan is facing a severe economic crisis because the Japanese government has deregulated and weakened labor standards. The excessive deregulation has helped large corporations hoard an enormous sum of money in internal reserves, and allowed speculative money to control the stock market.

Unless this distorted structure is changed into one in which excessive profits in the hands of large corporations be turned over for public use, the future outlook for a healthy Japanese economy is bleak, Shii said.

In regard to the argument by business circles that such reforms would weaken Japan’s international competitiveness, Shii argued that the conventional policy of protecting only a handful of large corporations and financial institutions has hollowed out the industrial sector in Japan.

Some participants said that they want the JCP policy to be reflected in local government policies, and that a consumption tax rate increase would deal a fatal blow to small- and medium-sized enterprises.

In conclusion Shii said that the traditional values of the merchant city of Osaka has something in common with the JCP call for a society governed by rules and regulations, and called on participants to support the JCP.

-Akahata, April 11, 2010