In the outlook report in October, the Policy Board members’ assessment was that, for fiscal 2002, economic growth will remain negative and prices will continue to decline. However, this assessment did not include the emergence of a deflationary spiral and we assumed that the deterioration of the economy would stop in the second half of fiscal 2002 if overseas economies started to recover.
•  •  The second area is innovation; the measures to facilitate it can be plotted along three main axes. ‒  First of all, the development of highly innovative infrastructure and sectors.