[CTC] Japan preparing for TPP vote

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Cutting Red Tape Japan's Focus in Preparation for TPP
http://www.bna.com/cutting-red-tape-n73014446775/ <http://www.bna.com/cutting-red-tape-n73014446775/>

By Toshio Aritake

Aug. 23
Japan's government will focus on cutting red tape to accommodate foreign
businesses wanting access to the Japanese market as it ramps up efforts
to have a 12-nation Asia-Pacific trade pact ratified, a Cabinet Office
official said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is bent on submitting the bills to approve the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to the next Diet (parliament) session
before the U.S. presidential election Nov. 8, the official said Aug. 23.

Regulatory and structural reforms, or doing away with unnecessary
government regulations, is one of Abe's “Abenomics three arrows” 
economic policy, but it has been criticized as static or even
backpedaling. 

The prime minister is gearing up to revamp the government Council for
Regulatory Reform by late September, when his ruling Liberal Democratic
Party plans to resubmit the TPP bills to the Diet (152 ITD, 8/8/16).

Abe is instructing aides to appoint more global- and business-oriented
people to the council, rather than the academics and business retirees
that dominated the previous council, which dissolved in late June, a
Cabinet Office official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told
Bloomberg BNA.

In addition, the LDP Aug. 23 is preparing to appoint a new chairman of
the House of Representatives TPP Commission. An LDP Secretariat official
said the party plans to tap Ryu Shionoya, former chairman of the LDP
General Council, to chair the TPP Commission. Shionoya would replace
Koya Nishikawa, who served in the role in the previous Diet session, the
official said.

Council's Role With TPP

To date, the council has been working on recommendations primarily
related to domestic matters, such as work-life balance, National Health
Insurance and a lifetime work policy. Abe wants to bridge the role of
the council with the TPP by reviewing and doing away with unnecessary
government regulations and simplifying those that are necessary for
foreign businesses that want to gain a foothold in, and export goods and
services to, Japan, the official said.

Japanese government panels typically spend six to nine months before
delivering reports to the government; therefore, the new council to be
formed by late September is likely to hand its report to the prime
minister in the first half of 2017.

The new council would take up such issues as agriculture, transportation,
telecommunications and information technology, as well as
self-regulation, community and regional revitalization, a carryover of
the previous council, the official said.
Why Bother?

Not everyone in the Diet is motivated to ratify the TPP.

Democratic Party Secretary General Yukio Edano Aug. 20 said in a speech
in Saitama, near Tokyo, that the prospects of the U.S. Congress
ratifying the TPP are “considerably slim, so it doesn't make a lot of
sense for Japan to rush ratification,” a party official confirmed.

Instead, Edano said Japan should wait for the U.S. to make concessions
in the TPP agreement areas where Japan is disadvantaged probably
referring to the agricultural area, the official said.

While U.S. lawmakers say they want concessions on the trade pact's
intellectual property protections for biologic medications and
investor-state dispute protections for tobacco companies, among others,
some Japanese lawmakers say the TPP doesn't do enough to defend five 
“sensitive” agricultural products from tariff liberalization (76 ITD,
4/20/16).
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