Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday unveiled a long-term plan to revive a weak economy, with economists saying more detail and implementation are now essential to prevent the strategy from failing as so many efforts to rejuvenate growth have done in the past.
Abe pledged to raise incomes by 3 percent annually over the next decade and set up special economic zones to attract foreign investment. He said the retail electricity market would be fully liberalized and he would aim to boost power related investment to 30 trillion yen ($300 billion) over the next 10 years.
Most of the measures had been flagged by the local media and there was some disappointment in markets that Abe did not announce bolder reforms in areas such as the labor market. The Nikkei stock index closed down 3.8 percent and the yen, which has weakened sharply this year on aggressive monetary easing in Japan, firmed.
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