Author: Ryohei Nakamura, Faculty Fellow, RIETI

This year is the final year of the five-year Regional Comprehensive Strategy. The year may be a period of preparation during which many local governments verify their achievement in key performance indicators (KPIs) and consider their next strategies. However, I am afraid that only a small number of municipalities will have achieved the birthrate target set in relation to employment and demographics, due to the fact that recent demographic data show an increase in net inflow of people into the Tokyo metropolitan area, rather than a population recovery in less urban prefectures.

Individually, measures implemented under the Comprehensive Strategy may be meaningful, but few local governments are able to provide explanations for the relationship between input and output —namely how the implementation of their measures affects the population and employment in their communities.

Read the entire article on the RIETI website or in Japanese here.