An expert panel has submitted to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda a final plan to establish a Consumer Agency that would integrate the administration of consumer affairs now handled by different ministries and agencies.
The plan gives the agency relatively strong power. The government hopes to submit a bill that would create the agency in fiscal 2009 to an extraordinary Diet session that will begin in August. It is hoped that Mr. Fukuda's idea of changing the government's basic attitude from producer-oriented to consumer-oriented will take solid form.
Thirty laws related to consumer affairs will come under the sole jurisdiction of the planned agency, to be established as an external organ of the Cabinet Office, or under the joint jurisdiction of it and other government entities. These entities must give up some staff and related budgets to the new agency. Mr. Fukuda should prepare to overcome resistance from them.