Financial Services Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa on Tuesday unveiled a package of measures intended to ease regulations on stock transactions and lure more individual investors into the market.
At the same time, Yanagisawa proposed tighter regulations on short selling, in which an investor borrows shares and immediately sells them, hoping to buy them back at a cheaper price so he can pocket the difference.
In the spring, the government blamed short-sellers for the Tokyo Stock Exchange's poor performance.