October 2011
October 3 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda meets John Victor Roos, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Japan, at the Prime Minister’s Office. They exchange frank opinions on security issues including Futenma Air Base, APEC and TPP.
October 3 According to the Bank of Japan’s quarterly short-term economic survey (tankan), the main diffusion index measuring large manufacturers’ business sentiment comes in at 2 (minus 9 in June 2011)
October 4 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda meets Taleb D. Rifai, Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The prime minister says that he will work at information communication so that more foreign tourists will visit Japan, noting that there are a number of attractive places to visit, especially in the countryside.
October 4 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda meets Meira Kumar, speaker of the Lok Sabha of India, at the Prime Minister’s Office. The prime minister says he understands the strong support for strengthening the Japan-India relationship by both ruling and opposition parties of the two countries and hopes to visit India this year.
October 7 Noda Cabinet decides the third supplementary budget of FY 2011 and the basic policy on the revenues for the reconstruction following 3/11. Total amount for the budget is about 12 trillion yen. 9.1 trillion yen of it is set for the recovery cost. The government aims to speed up the recovery of infrastructure in the devastated areas.
October 11 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda holds a meeting of the Central Disaster Prevention Council at the Prime Minister’s Office. At the meeting there was a report from an expert panel on earthquake and tsunami countermeasures.
October 11 Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko meets Shirakawa Masaaki, president of the Bank of Japan, and hears an explanation about the global financial situation and discusses collaboration looking forward to the G20 Summit in November.
October 11 Seven months pass since 3/11. All the evacuation centers are closed in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, where the largest number of dead and missing people was recorded.
October 12 Kyoto City is selected the best Asian city by the U.S. magazine Condé Nast Traveler for the first time.
October 18 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda visits Fukushima Prefecture and observes decontamination activities for residential houses in Fukushima City, visits people living in temporary housing and observes a kindergarten in Koriyama City.
October 18 The Government and TEPCO revise the “Roadmap for Immediate Actions for the Assistance of Residents Affected by the Nuclear Incident” which aims to stabilize the condition, called “cold shutdown,” of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants. The target is revised from by January 2012 to by the end this year.
October 19 Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko visits the Republic of Korea and has a summit meeting with ROK President Lee Myung-bak. They agree with widening the currency swap framework for the currency crisis between the countries from the current US$13 billion to US$70 billion. This will come into effect before the end of October 2012
October 19 The ruling Democratic Party of Japan and opposition Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito agree with the establishment of a new public agency by next spring to support rebuilding of small- and medium-sized companies in the fields of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and medicine.
October 21 The Government decides the outline of the third supplementary budget of FY 2011 which includes “Reconstruction Measures” following 3/11 and “Comprehensive Measures Against Yen Appreciation.” The total amount of the budget is about 12.1025 trillion yen. It is the second largest supplementary budget in Japan’s history.
October 22 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda attends the opening ceremony of the 24th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) and says, “It is my expectation that a whirlpool of excitement will spread from Tokyo through TIFF.”
October 23 Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko meets Prime Minister of France Francois Fillon. The two prime ministers decide to establish a committee composed of officials of the two countries to strengthen bilateral cooperation in all areas relating to nuclear energy.
October 23 Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko attends the opening ceremony of “China Film and Television Week Animation Festival” and says, “the next year is an important year for Japan and China as we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries. With the success of this exchange program as one such important opportunity, I would like to develop our bilateral relations to a great extent.”
October 24 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda meets with President of Germany Christian Wulff. The prime minister says that he hopes to lift free trade between Japan and the EU to a high level and wants to move forward with the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
October 25 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reaches an understanding with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, saying, “We have to develop Japan-U.S. security and defense cooperation across a wide range of areas.” During the meetings, the countries focus on how to move forward on the Futenma Air Station relocation issue and come up with concrete measures to strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance.
October 25 The Japanese yen records a high of 75.73 against the dollar at the New York Stock Exchange (and the dollar drops to its lowest level against the yen) since World War II.
October 28 Speaking in the Diet, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko says, “Due to the historic appreciation of the yen, the crisis of the hollowing-out of industry is continuing… Based on the recent ‘Comprehensive Measures Against Yen Appreciation,’ with the cooperation of the Bank of Japan we will take every possible policy measure, including a response to the strong yen itself.”
October 31 The government and Bank of Japan intervened in the exchange market by yen selling and dollar buying in the quarter. The yen fell to the 79-yen level against the dollar.
