“The Wagyu Cattle Exhibition in Tottori” (the 9th National Wagyu Cattle Ability Competition), which is held every 5 years, has successfully closed. I thank you for the cooperation of all the people that got involved in this national event, including the exhibiters, Tottori residents, many visitors from around the nation, and about a thousand of volunteers. I am glad that we have achieved this level of results – winning in five categories. Based on the evaluation by the Wagyu Registry Association, I want to develop some programs for promoting the growth of healthy Wagyu. The visitors reached 272,000 people. This figure may serve as a helpful reference when I think of tourism and any other events in our future. Comprehensively, I had the impression that Tottori prefecture will fascinate people and Tottori prefecture will be known as “Shokuno Miyako” (meaning Food City of Tottori). I would also like to thank the community of Oki in Shimane prefecture for performing their traditional “cattle locking horns competition” at the exhibition. By cooperating with two local communities, we have succeeded in pulling in more visitors.
From today, we are recruiting the “child-raising support passport.” As of November 18, this support system will be inaugurated. The family that has a child/children below 18 years of age or has a member that is pregnant, are subject to receive the child-raising support passport. This is a coalition support scheme that is led by the private sector, involving sponsors and the public sector. I want many people to use this service.
Yesterday, I went to Tokyo to meet with Minister Amari of Economy, Trade and Industry. I submitted to him the basic industrial vitalization plan as stipulated by the law to promote firm location. As Minister Amari agreed with the plan, I will be able to proceed to back up industrial accession in our prefecture.
Yesterday, multiple embezzlements by JR Tottori Seibu Division were revealed. After hearing the background of them, I will deal with this fraud as needed with an eye to administrative penalty.

As it is now, I do not think that the financial condition is positive. It is true that tax circumstances reflect poor state of the economy. I want to try to raise financial resources by saving money or reducing waste so that I can provide visible measures to the residents. Main areas of interest that I will challenge for the next year’s budget compilation are: industrial promotion; welfare, health care, education and child-raising, and construction of highway if possible.

From the aspect of the prefecture, to gain a new financial resource, I instructed to the prefectural department concerned to review the disposal of the prefectural properties such as disposal by sale. We will certainly be receiving income from naming rights and advertisings. I also instructed them to weigh new sales techniques such as internet auction against conventional ones. In large, the Liberal Democratic Party is reviewing a plan that, to rectify the disparity between the regions, the tax revenues from corporate enterprise tax and inhabitant tax (called Hojin-nizei) of big city areas are transferred to the local governments having weak financial capability. I am skeptical about this idea. This is an intervention of the central government. Such a plan deviates from real discussion as to what is fitted to the tax system. Since the services to the residents must be provided by yearly schedule, a yearly variation is not preferred. Also, uneven distribution of tax should be minimized. The idea to make an adjustment by the current corporate tax will have limits in the long run. It would rather be better to switch the tax system that is fit to the local rate; there will be an option to adopt consumption tax.

I want to watch how the assembly members review it. First, they must achieve accountability. What I want you to consider is that the civil officers whose positions are in the special government domain, like me are charged with the important mission to the prefectural residents and such persons cannot work without the understanding of the residents. The assembly members should review a fixing method of systemized remuneration without peer review by colleagues, taking proper procedures while leaving the verification to the experts. I will listen carefully to the explanation of the assembly side and will make a final decision. There will be various indexes, for example, taking the balance with other prefectures, comparison with the civil sector and the salaries of the top three prefectural positions into account.

We have to wait for a new plan of main revenues that Tottori Sanyo will show us at the end of November. If they develop a new business plan and preserve steady employment, we will need to back up their business by adopting the basic industrial vitalization plan as agreed with Amari, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. I will also approach their business, taking full advantage of the industrial vitalization tools as stipulated by the law to promote firm location.

I have always thought that the decision as to whether an election is single or multiple should be left to the voter preference. I have doubted it is righteous to systemically restrict. But, recently, I am thinking that banning multiple elections might have positive meaning to let fresh air in the politics if it would bring about political vitality. I want to reconsider looking at the movement for revisions to laws.

I have collected a variety of opinions from various areas. Immediately after the September assembly session ended, I met and talked with the chief of the headquarters of Asiana Airlines, and conveyed to him discussion results of the assembly meeting, opinions of the residents and press reports. In the meantime, a school trip to Seoul was forced to change to another carrier due to the Asiana’s plane rotation failure. We strongly opposed them their failure at this time, and they apologized to us. We will need to continuously negotiate with Asiana in various ways.

I am still waiting for the result of the study. So I have not yet discussed about the written opinion. This is especially a topic of human rights and an area we must treat very carefully. There would be no hurry if any proposals cannot be prepared till the December assembly session.

It won’t work out as long as this tax law is not legislated. I will propose my intention when the time comes. However, I think I need to publicize the aim of the hometown tax payment to the people associated with Tottori prefecture timely. I want to clarify the use to the contributors in due course. As for the amount, although it depends on how soon this scheme or system becomes widely used, I estimate around or below a hundred million yen.

I have some concerns about evaluating myself. Please give me your evaluations to what I have done since I took office so that I can use them to reflect back and review. I want to value the process one step at a time while absorbing people’s opinions. I might be going slowly, but I feel that my administration seems to be producing a certain good result. It is my hope to accelerate what I intend to do. If I regret what needs to be regretted, there will be time shortage due to my busy schedule. For example, I needed more time for policy making with the prefectural government staffs. It will be my desire to spend more times on making policy measures for the initial budget compilation.