tourism and recreation, lifelong learning, arts and sports, urban planning, infrastructure, and transportation. In the areas of waste, industrial pollution, and the environment, child care assistance and education, medical and health care, and pensions, an electronic exchange of information between residents and businesses is most desired, and in the area of resident personal data, the digitization of administrative procedures involving applications, notices and such is hoped for (Exhibit 1-22). On the other hand, as in the case of the ranking of the desired areas of public administration, differentials in the ranking of the most desired methods of receiving public information by local businesses are also relatively small.

In an analysis of the evaluations by residents and businesses of the Web sites of municipalities, which is an example of the electronic offering of public administration information, in terms of design, search-friendliness, updating frequency, and information volume, both residents and businesses are relatively highly satisfied with the design of the Web sites, while there is a low degree of satisfaction concerning search-friendliness, information volume, and updating frequency. Furthermore, with respect to the areas of the Web sites of municipalities which residents and businesses feel need to be improved, there is a strong need for more information related to administrative procedures and daily life and business. In addition, in terms of the desired updating frequency, more than 40% of the residents and businesses surveyed requested that homepages be updated about once a week (residents: 41.3%, businesses: 40.9%). With respect to the desired method for searching information, both residents and businesses would like to see a menu format which is comprised of different areas such as resident personal data and medial and health care (residents: 70.1%, businesses: 64.8%), and a free keyword search which would allow users to carry out a search by entering any word (residents: 55.1%, businesses: 59.3%). In addition, more than 50% of residents would also like to see a menu format comprised of various life scenarios, such as everyday living, business, and leisure. These results suggest that residents and businesses expect to see Web sites that would have a menu format comprised of a variety of areas. The Web sites would allow users to search for information under various

life scenarios on the first page and possess a supplementary search method whereby the user could search for information by typing in any key word. Furthermore, going forward both residents and businesses expressed their intention to make extensive use of the Web sites for downloading applications and other documents.

The survey also classified the electronic exchange of information between the residents and businesses into two categories, namely, the digitization of inquiries and answers via e-mail, and the digitization of opinion exchanges via electronic conference rooms, and analyzed which areas are of most importance to residents and businesses. The results of the survey have shown that residents have high expectations for the digitization of inquiries and answers in areas that are closely related to everyday life such as resident personal data, medical and health care, welfare for the elderly and challenged, and pensions. On the other hand, they are very much interested in the digitization of opinion exchanges in areas that are related to leisure and community building such as cultural assets, tourism and recreation, urban planning, infrastructure, and transportation, lifelong learning, and arts and sports. In addition, businesses carry high expectations regarding the digitization of inquiries and answers in the areas of support for industries and business activities, urban planning, infrastructure, and transportation, and with respect to the digitization of opinion exchanges their interests lie in the areas of employment assistance and unemployment policies, and business loans and subsidies.

With respect to the willingness to use electronic administrative procedures for processing applications and notices, the majority of the residents expressed a strong intention to use such services for all types of administrative procedure and therefore they have high expectations with regard to this. In addition, businesses have shown a similar intention to use such electronic services. In particular, more than 70% of the businesses surveyed expressed an intention to utilize electronic procedures related to internal administrative tasks such as social security, including pension and health insurance, and taxes, including business taxes. Furthermore, the majority of residents and businesses believed that in order that electronic administrative procedures for