The government and ruling coalition have agreed in principle on the goal of consolidating eight governmental financial institutions into a single entity, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Monday.
Abe's comments came after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided Sunday to try to achieve consolidation basically through integrating five institutions, privatizing two and placing one under regional government control.
"The government and the ruling camp are more or less in accord on the direction that we should downsize the government and seek consolidating them into a single institution if possible, as the prime minister has said," Abe told a news conference.