The nation's move toward deregulation is at a turning point and the government must continue easing regulations to "climb the next mountain," says the deputy chairman of an Administrative Reform Committee branch.

In an interview with The Japan Times, Yoshihiko Miyauchi, deputy chairman of the deregulation branch of the government advisory committee, said that revisions of the government's three-year deregulation plan announced last week show much improvement over the plans it had three to five years ago. "The deregulation that we aimed for was just like a high mountain that we thought we could never climb," said Miyauchi, who is also president of Orix Corp. "Now we can reach the mountain's peak, but we have just discovered that there is another mountain behind it," he said, expressing his belief that the efforts must be continuous.

After the three-year deregulation program ends in fiscal 1997, he said the government should establish an organization like Miyauchi's subcommittee, or an even stronger body, to continue monitoring the government's program. "Deregulation is not something that we can completely achieve by a certain date ... I hope that some kind of organization will be set up to allow our work to continue in the future," he said.