Factbox: Expected steps in Japan's growth strategy

TOKYO (Reuters) - The third-tranche of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's growth strategy, set to be unveiled on Wednesday, will likely focus on the creation of special economic zones where deregulation and tax cuts can be implemented in designated places such as big cities.

Japan may also urge the nation's public funds to review their investment strategy to raise their holdings of equities and overseas assets as part of a growth strategy.

Abe has said he wants to announce the growth strategy, the so-called Third Arrow of the "Abenomics" prescription of aggressive monetary and fiscal policies, before the June 17-18 Group of Eight nations summit in Northern Ireland.

The following are main steps expected to be part of the growth program, including those already announced by Abe or his advisors.

PUBLIC FUND

- Urge public pension funds - a pool of more than $2 trillion - to increase their investment in equities and overseas assets, according to people with knowledge of the policy shift.

- Create a panel by July to consider the investment strategies of public funds, which, like other Japanese institutional investors, have relied heavily on buying Japanese government bonds in recent years.

PRIVATE SECTOR/INVESTMENT

- Focus on the next five years as a structural reform period and set up special economic zones where bold deregulation and lower corporate taxes can be implemented. (Nikkei)

- Aim to boost the total value of infrastructure projects that involve private finance initiatives (PFIs) by 2.5 times to 12 trillion yen ($120.5 billion) over the next 10 years by selling the rights to operate some facilities such as airports and expressways. (Nikkei)

- Pledge to minimize investment of government funds in firms to avoid bailouts of "zombie" companies that are failing.(Nikkei)

- Focus on boosting domestic private investment over the next three years and target for private-sector investment of 70 trillion yen annually, the level before the 2008 financial crisis and up about 10 percent from current levels.

FREE TRADE

- Hit a target of 70 percent of exports covered by free trade deals by 2018, compared with around 19 percent, by pushing the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership (TPP) and other trade deals with the European Union, China and South Korea, and aim to create an Asia-Pacific free trade area. (Nikkei)

- Triple infrastructure exports to 30 trillion yen by 2020.

- Double the stock of foreign direct investment in Japan to 35 trillion yen by 2020. (Nikkei)

"COOL JAPAN"

- Triple overseas sales of "Cool Japan" content such as anime in five years.

- Boost exports of Japanese food including farm products, traditional cuisine and sweets to around 1 trillion yen by 2020 from about 450 billion yen in 2012. (Yomiuri newspaper)

- Aim to boost the number of annual foreign visitors to Japan to 20 million a year from about 8 million now.

LABOUR

- Promote the smooth shift of workers to growth sectors from mature business areas without creating unemployment.

- Increase the employment rate of those aged 20 to 64, to 80 percent in 2020 from 75 percent now. (Nikkei)

- Shorten the duration of stay in Japan required for approval of permanent residency to three years from five years to encourage high-skilled foreigners to keep working in the country. (Nikkei)

AGRICULTURE

- Double farm, fisheries and marine exports to 1 trillion yen by 2020.

- Reduce rice production cost by an average of 40 percent by 2020. (Nikkei)

WOMEN

- Set a goal of reducing the waiting list at day care centers to zero by 2017 to make it easier for women to work and raise children.

- Promote extending periods of childcare leave to last up to three years.

HEALTH CARE

- Create system similar to the National Institutes of Health in the United States to develop cutting-edge medical technologies.

- Submit legislation to revise the pharmaceutical law to shorten examination period.

- Implement bold regulatory easing to speed up the examination process of medical technologies by allowing certification by third party private institutions, except for risky technologies such as cardiac pacemakers.

- Allow internet sales of all the nonprescription drugs if confirmed safety. (Nikkei)

ENERGY

- Complete electricity system reform by around 2020 and restart those nuclear power reactors that the Nuclear Regulation Authority confirms safety. (Nikkei)

- Speed up the process of making environment assessments of coal-fired electricity generating plants.

($1 = 99.5650 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-expected-steps-japans-growth-strategy-082131919.html

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