TOKYO (BLOOMBERG) – Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has signalled his intention to shift economic policy and freshen up the ruling party’s image by scrapping a growth strategy panel and replacing it with a more gender-balanced group tasked with fomenting a “new form of capitalism”.

The new panel is assigned the task of creating a virtuous circle of growth and distribution, and creating a new post-pandemic society, according to a Cabinet Office statement on Friday (Oct 15).

By highlighting the importance of distributing the benefits of growth more fairly, Mr Kishida is again hitting on a theme that he hopes will shore up support for the ruling party in a general election at the end of this month.

The newly minted Premier has said that corporate profits needed to be shared more widely.

In another move likely aimed at differentiating himself from previous Liberal Democratic Party leaders, Mr Kishida made almost half the 15 expert members of the panel women. Only a quarter of the growth council’s experts were female.

The new panel members include Commons Asset Management chairman Ken Shibusawa, the great-great grandson of Japanese capitalism pioneer Eiichi Shibusawa, who founded the country’s first bank and stock exchange.

The panel will also be debating a revision for disclosing quarterly earnings reports.

Crowdfunding platform provider READYFOR’s 33-year old chief executive, Mr Haruka Mera, is also a part of the panel. So is Ms Yumiko Murakami, a general partner at MPower Partners Fund, a venture capital fund focused on environmental, social and governance investments that she co-started with former Goldman Sachs vice-chairman Kathy Matsui.

More on this topic

Join ST’s Telegram channel here and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

Source: Read Full Article