The government is considering a plan to designate some cities or areas as "model areas" where businesses promoting information technology would be given preferential tax and regulatory treatment, economic minister Heizo Takenaka said Thursday.
"It would be a sort of stimulus to create model areas to provide examples to the nation of successful IT use," Takenaka, minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy and information technology, told a lecture meeting. "The method of designating areas and pushing IT use as an experiment inside such areas as an initial step (toward greater nationwide IT use) could be used.
"Now, we are contemplating how to carry this out," he said. "It would be nice if people were able to enjoy themselves by surfing the Internet in such model areas and designated zones."