Abe to Order Stimulus Package on Tues.

Tokyo, July 11 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that he will instruct Economic Revitalization Minister Nobuteru Ishihara on Tuesday to draw up an economic stimulus package promptly, following the ruling bloc's victory in Sunday's House of Councillors election. "We received strong public support for a further acceleration of Abenomics," Abe, also LDP president, told a press conference, referring to his reflationary policy mix. "The key phrase (for the stimulus package) will be investment in the future," Abe stressed. "We will expand export-oriented farming facilities throughout the country and fundamentally strengthen infrastructure for regional tourism, including by improving ports to accept cruise ships," he said. Abe also expressed willingness to advance the full opening of a magnetic levitation train line between Tokyo and Osaka by up to eight years from the currently planned 2045, while also spurring construction of Shinkansen high-speed railways elsewhere in the country. Besides the economy, the prime minister reiterated his intention to create a grant-type scholarship program soon and vowed to improve social security, including by a cut in the minimum required subscription period for receiving public pension benefits. Abe said he will reshuffle his cabinet and Liberal Democratic Party leadership to form teams powerful enough to implement what the party pledged in its Upper House election campaign. The reshuffle is expected to come as early as Aug. 3. The focus will be successors to Justice Minister Mitsuhide Iwaki and Aiko Shimajiri, minister in charge of Okinawa affairs, who lost their seats in the Upper House election. Abe said he has not decided whether to retain Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and LDP Secretary-General Sadakazu Tanigaki in their key respective cabinet and party posts. END