. figures for " actual base pay increase " and " actual regular wage increase " from 1991 to 2014 are those published by the central labour relations commission, while those from 2015 to 2024 are figures released by the japanese trade union confederation ( rengo ). figures are based on the wage negotiation results of labor unions for which the base pay increase is clear. sources : central labour relations commission ; ministry of internal affairs and communications ; rengo. next, i will turn to business fixed investment. on the back of favorable corporate profits on the whole, business fixed investment has been on a moderate increasing trend ; as for the business fixed investment plans in the june 2024 tankan ( short - term economic survey of enterprises in japan ), the reported rate for fiscal 2024 indicates a relatively high increase compared with past june tankan surveys ( chart 4 ). under such circumstances, the remaining orders for machinery and construction have stayed on an increasing trend, as there have been some cases where firms postponed fixed investment in response to labor shortages. regarding the outlook, although the amount of business fixed investment could be pushed down due to these postponements, such investment is likely to follow a long - term uptrend. this is due to firm demand for fixed investment, such as investment to address labor shortages and digitalrelated investment, as well as investments associated with the green transformation and with strengthening supply chains. chart 4 : business fixed investment planned and actual investment remaining orders y / y % chg. 40 tril. yen tankan ( planned investment in current fiscal year as of the june survey of each year ) private nonresidential investment ( sna, nominal ) tankan ( actual ) tril. yen 30 machinery ( excluding orders for ships, left scale ) construction ( right scale ) - 10 - 20 fy08 cy19 notes : 1. in the left panel, tankan figures include software and r & d investments and exclude land purchasing expenses. figures are for all industries including financial institutions. 2. in the left panel, the figure for " private nonresidential investment " for fiscal 2024 is for 2024 / q2. 3. in the right panel, figures for " construction " are based on a survey of 50 major construction companies. sources : cabinet office ; ministry of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism ; bank of japan. b. price developments turning to japan's price developments, the year - on - year rate of increase in the consumer price index

has already implemented a number of steps to take the lead in addressing environmental issues. for example, in the area of energy supply, work has been in progress in fields such as wind and solar power generation, biomass power generation in central hokkaido – which has a large dairy farming industry – and the utilization of snow - ice cryogenic energy in regions with heavy snowfall, using snow and ice stored in winter for air - conditioning in summer. all of these efforts take full advantage of the region's distinguishing features and are friendly to the environment. the summit is a perfect opportunity to showcase hokkaido's industries and natural environment, not only domestically but also to the rest of the world. i hope this will bring about steady progress in the revitalization of the regional economy.