Kan aims to create longer-term growth strategy by year-end

Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Sunday that he is aiming to devise by year-end a 10- to 20-year economic growth strategy for the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

Speaking to the press, Kan, who doubles as state minister in charge of national policy, said he wants "jobs, the environment, children and economic stimulus to become the four pillars (of the economic strategy)."

Kan said he is hoping to coordinate discussions on the strategy with those of a Cabinet committee on global warming and to craft a relevant plan by mid-December when the Ministry of Finance will be working on a government budget for fiscal 2010 beginning next April.

The strategy is to be implemented from fiscal 2010, he said.

"For the past 20 years, the government has spent money on projects that produced no results and consequently the economy did not grow while the deficit mounted," Kan said. "We won't repeat the same (fiscal) mistake."

With regard to the large number of children who are on waiting lists for places at day care centers, Kan called for administrative reform to make it possible to set up kindergartens and care facilities in unused spaces at elementary and junior high schools.

"This should help to create new jobs and promote economic growth," he said.