In the Mori Cabinet, our agency held the initiative, but in the new administration we are being driven by the prime minister's leadership. However, what is scary is if consumer prices fall and negative economic growth leads to deflation. I hope to push structural reform while taking great care to prevent economic growth from falling into the negative. Falling consumer prices are influenced by import prices and weak consumer confidence. One factor behind weak consumer confidence is negative expectations.
Structural reform means converting that factor into positive expectations.
Fiscal expenditures were released with the message that this was the policy to deal with the slumping economy. However, if those expenditures had been implemented as a support mechanism for pushing through structural reform, the results would have been different. Even if the policy implemented is the same, what is important is the message that policy carries. In that sense, we have to say the handling of the problem by politicians was poor. While it can be imagined that additional losses will arise through the writing off of bad debt, the banks should be able to handle it by increasing reserves and the situation should not deteriorate to the extent that fundamental bank management would be shaken.