2016 Volume 62 Issue 4 Pages 346-359
A minister of state focused on policies for the promotion of overcoming population decline and vitalizing the local economy in Japan was newly established in September 2014. Since then, new regional policies for regional revitalization have been implemented. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the background and process of those policy formations and to examine the characteristics and problems of some important policies, such as special grants for regional revitalization and the decentralization of governmentaffiliated agencies.
The special grants for regional revitalization have been preferentially provided to those local governments which utilized RESAS (Regional Economy Society Analyzing System) and proposed a pioneering project. Facing globalization and population decline, the independence of regional economies and the strengthening of competitiveness in the international market have been thought of as very important policies. Regarding to the correction of the unipolar concentration of Tokyo, the decentralization of private and national R&D activities is expected to create new employment opportunities through collaboration with local universities and research institutes.
In October 2014, the primary policy examination team lacked enough time to verify past and overseas policies, and interagency cooperation was not sufficient. It is necessary to develop and reconstruct systematically policies for regional revitalization while avoiding their disappearance, being just a transient boom.
