(4) Review of varied tendering and contracting options, etc.

From now on, it would be necessary to maintain, manage and upgrade social capital stocks keeping in balance with the development of social capitals in true need. In the meantime, concerns over the future strategic maintenance, management and upgrade of social capital stocks mount as diminishing construction investment has left local constructors in ruins, forcing them to take orders dumped amid stiffening market competition, with the result of constrained subcontractors, a declining population of young workers entering the industry and so on.

Administrators of social capitals are also urged to properly respond to the challenges of diversified and sophisticated needs for infrastructure services with their limited supply of human resources, dictating a drastic overhaul of the ways jobs get done, including shares of responsibility between the public and private sectors.

Filling this need calls for building a stable construction, production and management system that properly gets the jobs of servicing infrastructures, such as planning, surveying, designing, constructing and maintaining and managing them, getting prepared for natural disasters and so on, for maintaining proper shares of responsibility between the public and private sectors and between the private sectors and also for the introduction, use, etc. of varied tendering and contracting options tailored to the needs of the times and characteristics of the public-works projects.

To this end, the “Conference on the Future Concept of the Construction Production and Management System for Fulfilling Contractees’ Responsibilities” has met since November 2013 to explore the concept of implementing the integrated work flow of social capital development, from planning to design, construction and management, from contractees’ viewpoints with the results of reviews of a tendering and contracting system reform for assuring the quality of infrastructures and securing their supporters made at the Subcommittee on Basic Problems, Construction, Construction Workshop, Industry Workgroup, Central Council on Construction Contracting Business and Social Infrastructure Development Council (measures to be immediately taken compiled in January 2014).

The Amended Quality Assurance Act, which came into effect in May 2014, provides for the introduction and use of varied tendering and contracting options, including methods for negotiating technical proposals and step-by-step screening.

Section 6 Forming a New Phase of Relationships between the Central and Local Governments and Private Sector

## New Phase of Relationships between the Central and Local Governments

The implementation of measures, etc. on a nationwide scale or from nationwide perspectives has been driven to approach vital tasks that have a direct bearing upon national life, such as forming an animated economic society and establishing safety and security for the regions, etc. with keeping appropriate shares of responsibility between the central and local governments.

Under the circumstances, the MLIT has been working towards the decentralization of power, including reviews of obligations and conformances and transfers of paperwork routines and authorities.

The “Act on the Formulation of Legislations Relevant to the Promotion of Reforms for Enhancing Local Autonomy and Independence (Third Decentralization Legislation)” was enacted and enforced in part in FY2013 in connection with reviews, etc. of obligations and conformances. In addition, the Cabinet passed decisions on the transfer of certain paperwork routines and authorities involved in the registration, etc. of paid passenger transport services using privately owned automobiles from the central government to the local one seeking these services, those involved in the formulation, etc. of urban plans on town planning areas from the prefectural government to designated cities (only those relating to urban planning areas within a single designated city), and so on. Then the resultant bill for the Fourth Decentralization Legislation was submitted to the Diet and resolved in May 2014 based on those decisions.

## 2 Driving Public-Private Partnerships, etc

The formation of new scheme of PPP (Public-Private Partnership)/PFI and concrete proposals has been promoted to develop, maintain and manage social infrastructures of real need by expanding the utilization of private funds under stringent financial conditions. Further, the preparation of PPP/PFI project proposals pertaining to the restoration of the areas stricken by the Great East Japan Earthquake is being propelled.