Today, I once again take up the heavy burden that accompanies the post of Prime Minister of Japan. I am bolstering myself to bear this mission and responsibility. With a keen sense of the severity of the judgment handed down by the voters in this general election, I am determined to commit all of my energy to carrying out the policies of the nation.
Japan now stands at a great crossroads.
With the imminent arrival of our Aging Society, we now face a hollowing-out of our industries and a crisis in our fiscal health. I want to build a society right away in which each and every one of our people can have dreams and goals toward the future, and can fully exercise his or her creativity and spirit of challenge, and a country in which the values that our people can share with the rest of the world prevail. In particular, through administrative reform, we must advance sweeping regulatory repeal and deregulation and shift power from the bureaucracies to the private sector and from the center to the outlying regions, so that we can achieve a simple and efficient administrative structure. In parallel to this, I will devote my mind to building an administration which is open and transparent to the people so that we can respond flexibly to the changing times and restructure the central ministries and agencies into a system which can respond accurately to complex and varied administrative tasks. Regarding the various issues in Okinawa, the entire cabinet will continue to devote its utmost efforts to finding a solution.