At the same time, I hear that the economy of southern Hokkaido faces the challenges of an aging population and a population drain from the region, and thus developing a growth strategy that takes advantage of regional strengths and implementing such strategy promptly have been urgent matters.
- 10 would be, some combination of more encouragement for private investment, improved public infrastructure, better education, and more effective regulation is likely to promote faster growth of productivity and living standards--and also to reduce the probability that the economy and, particularly, the central bank will in the future have to contend with the effective lower bound.