The current economic recovery in Japan has been marred by imbalances. One imbalance is between the corporate and household sectors. While the corporate sector is prospering, much of the household sector is missing out on the fruit of the nation's longest postwar economic expansion. Stagnant wage growth is putting a damper on personal spending, which accounts for just less than 60 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.
Another imbalance is regional. While some regions and areas are thriving, others are suffering a decline in economic activity. Especially conspicuous is the hollowing out of some city centers in the countryside, as characterized by permanently closed shops.
In an attempt to bring life back to provincial cities, the Diet has revised three laws: (1) the revised urban planning law to control the establishment of commercial facilities of at least 10,000 sq. meters; (2) the revised law on location of large-scale retail stores to control various nuisances caused by such stores; and (3) the revised law to revitalize city centers to provide central government subsidies to city governments whose city center revitalization plans have been approved by the central government.
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