Abe forms consulting panel amid fears about tax hike fallout
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E-mail Xinhua, August 20, 2013
The Japanese government has selected a group of people from varying backgrounds to act as a sounding board for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ahead of a planned sales tax hike, the Cabinet Office said Tuesday.
The group of 59 individuals is comprised of financiers, research think tank members, business leaders and nonprofit organization representatives, the office said.
Discussions will commence next Monday, at which time the prime minister will consult with the newly formed panel regarding their views on his planned sales tax hike.
Government officials as well as leading economists have suggested that the planned sales tax hike may stifle the Japanese economy and make it impossible to hit Abe's target of not just beating two decades of deflation, but hitting an inflation rate of 2 percent.
Abe has leaned hard on Japan's central bank to do all it can to uphold his 2 percent inflation target through ultra-loose monetary easing policies, open-ended asset purchasing plans and by maintaining a super-low interest rate at virtually zero.
Panel members include both those in favor and those against the planned sales tax hike that will see the nation's tax raised from the current 5 percent to 8 percent next April and to 10 percent in October 2015.
According to local media reports, some government members will also be on the consulting panel, including economic and fiscal policy minister Akira Amari, Finance Minister Taro Aso, BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and private members of another government panel on economic and fiscal policy.
The panel will come under the close scrutiny of financial markets as any delay, or postponing of the planned sales tax hike, could lead to market's losing faith in Abe's plans and his overall economic policy, dubbed "Abenomics," yet the tax hike could lead to a reduction in household and consumer spending and thus fail to combat the nation's crippling deflation.
"We selected people from a wide range of occupations to hear opinions in a balanced manner," Amari told a news conference Tuesday.
"I hope we can provide the prime minister with as much information as possible so that he can make a decision in as appropriate a fashion as possible," the minister said.
Abe said he would make a final decision on the sales tax hike following consultations with the panel, his Cabinet and once having analyzed Japan's April to June GDP growth data. Endi
