Word: aso
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...under the umbrella of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The revamped agency's annual budget of more than $10 billion puts it in the same league as the Asian Development Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development. With the sagging economy, which many - including Prime Minister Taro Aso - say is already in recession, the reorganization doesn't necessarily mean more money, just a more efficent way at dispensing it. JICA expects the change to scale up its activities and quickly turn projects into viable programs and also streamline the process of providing technical assistance, grant aid and soft...
...recently unveiled a $5.6 billion spending package for its sagging economy that included subsidized mortgages and new infrastructure projects. Japan's Cabinet on Sept. 29 proposed a $17 billion supplementary budget to help ease the burden of high energy and food prices on businesses. Newly installed Prime Minister Taro Aso is also calling for tax cuts to boost domestic demand. "Rebuilding the Japanese economy is an issue of utmost urgency," Aso said in his first policy speech. China, which could see its GDP growth rate fall below 10% next year for the first time since 2002, is widely expected...
...Tokyo A New Face for Japan On his fourth try for the Prime Minister's post, former Foreign Minister Taro Aso ascended to the top job on Sept. 24. A brash, freewheeling nationalist given to political gaffes (he has joked about Alzheimer's disease and said he wanted Japan to be an attractive destination for "rich Jews"), Aso, 68, cuts a sharply different figure from his dour predecessors, Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda--whose tenures were dogged, respectively, by scandal and partisan gridlock. A former Olympic sharpshooter and an avid fan of manga comics, he has stressed energizing Japan...
...Aso's chief rival is Ichiro Ozawa, the 66-year-old populist leader of the DPJ, who has vowed to become prime minister and called the upcoming elections Japan's "last chance" to change. Ozawa has set out nine major policy initiatives aimed at perceived LDP weaknesses. Among them is a plan to unify the pension and healthcare systems, which could win points with Japan's aging population and embarrass LDP leaders, who have at times appeared insensitive to the pocketbook issues of ordinary citizens. Ozama also wants to narrow Japan's growing income gap by raising low-income wages...
Despite the LDP's precarious position, Aso does have some things going for him. A famously avid fan of manga comics and the first to set up an award for non-Japanese cartoonists, the ex-foreign minister has gained the support of young voters. His characteristic off-the-cuff remarks win him the image of a gruff political straight shooter - he admits, for instance, that he is "prone to pork-barrel spending," but says that to reinvigorate Japan's economy he plans to spend more to stimulate domestic demand. "The economic situation is getting tough," said Aso on Sept...