 It gives me great honor at this opening day and opening session to introduce to you Prime Minister Abe, Prime Minister of Japan. And Prime Minister, when we met some months ago, you promised to come to Davos. And I know you are a man who keeps his promises. You mentioned to me there's only one difficulty. It's the opening of the diet, which usually takes place end of January. So what we did, we are slowly advancing the beginning of the annual meeting to make sure that you cannot, that you can be with us not only today, but also in the coming years. And so there's no conflict anymore. Now when we met via video at the last annual meeting in a small group, and you asked to bring together some of the world's best economists to have a dialogue with you, you were just at the beginning of Abenomics. You shot the first and the second ever. Now I can say Japan is back, and we are very eager to listen to you about the third era, which certainly you will develop for us. But I would also like to use this opportunity to congratulate you, because in the last 12 months, you also were awarded the site of the Olympic Games in 2020. Prime Minister, when we talk about Abenomics, it's not just your country which is concerned. We know that we are living in an era where the traditional economic concepts may be not valid anymore. And please all the economists in the room, excuse me, if I say so, we need new bold concepts, and Abenomics is such a bold concept, which may be valid for quite a number of countries in the future. So what you are telling us now is very crucial for all of us. Please join me here on the stage, Prime Minister. Thank you, Professor Shorap for your kind introduction. Mr. President, it's an honor to speak after you. Now I don't know who chose it, who coined it, but they call my economic policy Abenomics. Well, I hesitate to go on calling my own name, but let me use it anyway. So Abenomics has three arrows. The first is bold monetary policy. The second is about flexible fiscal policy. And the third arrow will continue sparking private investment. Japan economy is just about to break free from chronic deflation. This spring, wages will increase. Higher wages, long overdue, will lead to greater consumption. Our fiscal situation has also made steady improvement. Japan is now getting on track for fiscal consolidation. Pandits used to say that Japan was at dusk, or the land of the setting sun. They said that for a country as mature as Japan, growth would be impossible. These arguments were made to sound almost legitimate. You can see what Japan's psyche was like before I took office as Prime Minister. Hardly can you hear any such voices now? Our growth rate has changed dramatically from negative growth to positive. In six years' time, the Olympics and the Paralympics will come to Tokyo. People are now more vibrant and upbeat. It is not a twilight, but a new dawn that is breaking over Japan. May I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that late last year, we decided to go on major reforms. I have broken through the notion that certain reforms could never be carried out. We will completely liberalize Japan's electricity market. By the time the Olympics compete in Tokyo in 2020, Japan's electricity market will also be completely competitive for both power generation and retail, with power generation split off from power transmission. In Japan, people have long said that such a thing is just impossible. We will also foster medical care as an industry. Japan is on the leading edge in regenerative medicine. We will make it possible to generate sales at private sector factories. In Japan, people have long said that such a thing is just impossible. We are also doing away with the rice production adjustment system. This system has been in place for more than 40 years. Trade companies will be able to engage in farming without barriers and growth crops they want without artificial control over supply and demand. In Japan, people have long said that such a thing is just impossible. And yet, last autumn, we actually decided to make all these changes. In addition, yesterday morning, I gave additional instructions to reform the Japanese system because we also need large-scale healthcare companies in the form of holding companies, much like the Mayo Clinic. I have maintained that I am willing to act like a drill bit strong enough to break through the solid rock of vested interests. Soon, our deregulation package will be set in motion. The designated areas on my own watch will cut through red tape. There, over the next two years, no vested interest will remain immune from my drill. In cities hoping to join the world-class limits on floor-area relations will become a thing of the past. The sky will be the limit. We will soon see high-quality housing or business complexes and zero-emissions towns appearing one after another. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, will remain a central pillar of my economic policies. We will push ahead the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement. Those will surely make Japan's economy even more deeply integrated into global flows of knowledge, trade, and investment. Companies and people from abroad will find Japan among the most business-friendly places in the world. Japan's public fund management will also change a great deal. Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund now holds about 1.2 trillion US dollars. We will press ahead with forward-looking reforms, including a review of its portfolio. That GPIF will contribute to investments leading to growth. We must also make the tax system for companies internationally competitive. We will reduce the corporate tax rate by 2.4 percent from April this year. We will also encourage companies to use the tax. They have gathered towards capital investment, R&D, and wages in workers' salaries. To do this, we will put tax incentives into place in a way completely different from before. This year, we will set about further reform on corporate tax. We will reform the labor market that ties workers to old industries. New industries require innovative and creative human resources. We will redirect our subsidies so that workers without meaningful work in old industries can move to new industries that require good human resources. Japan is becoming a super-aging society even as the number of children is falling. You might find yourself asking in such a country where you will find those innovative and creative human resources. Mariana Huffington once said that if layman brothers had been layman brothers and sisters, the farm would have survived. Japan's corporate culture is still one of the pinstripes and bottom-downs. After all, the female labor force in Japan is the most underutilized resource. Japan must become a place where women shine. By 2020, we will make 30 percent of leading positions to be occupied by women. In order to have a large number of women become leading players in the market, we will need a diverse working environment. Support from foreign workers will also be needed for help with the housework, housework care for the elderly and the like. As GDP could grow by 16 percent more if women participated in labor as much as men. That is what Hillary Clinton told me. I was greatly encouraged. Another thing that will be needed is a major impetus for change aimed at corporate boards. We will soon put forward changes in the corporate law to the upcoming parliamentary session. After these changes, external directors will increase. Next month, we will also draw up a stewardship code. It will make it easier for institutional investors to have a greater role in corporate governance. All of these combined, I'm sure we can double or inward direct investment by 2020. All this would reboot the entire country. Trans-economic landscape will change dramatically. On March 11, 2011, the north-eastern part of Japan was hit by the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant failure. Three years will soon have passed. The love and compassion we were given from the world touched us deeply. The recovery is far from over. I'm the one most responsible for the future of the survivors. Yet, it are these very survivors who helped each other with stiff upper lips trying to overcome so many hardships. Their spirit of perseverance moved people all over the world. It is with that same spirit of mutual assistance that Japan is now set to turn into a nation that will contribute even more positively toward world peace. In Cambodia, the hospital Japan built for mothers and newborn babies helped reduce the country's infant mortality rate. In the Philippines, after the devastating typhoon, the relief effort by Japan's self-defense forces was movingly welcomed. Based in Debuchi, over self-sacrifice men and women are still on high alert against poverty, protecting ships from around the world. In our age, no single nation can preserve peace by itself. None of us alone can solve the challenges the world faces without helping each other. And New Japan is now waiving a burner for proactive contribution to peace. I want you to know you can count on us. Asia has become a growth tenter for the world. Japan is surrounded by neighbors with unlimited possibilities, such as China, South Korea, the ASEAN, nations, India and Russia, and across the Pacific, the TPP partner countries in this region, which will be the engine driving the world economy forward. I am always contemplating just how we can achieve peace and prosperity and make them everlasting. The foundation for prosperity comes down to freedom or movement for people and goods. From the sea lanes, in airspace and recently in outer space and cyberspace, freedom or movement must remain secure. The only way to fully keep these indispensable public goods safe and peaceful is to rigorously maintain the rule of law. It is for that purpose that fundamental values like freedom, human rights and democracy must be assured. There is no alternative if peace and stability were shaken in Asia. The knock-on effect for the entire world would be enormous. The dividend of growth in Asia must not be wasted on military expansion. We must use it to invest in innovation and human capital, which will further boost growth in the region. Trust, not tension, is crucial for peace and prosperity in Asia and in the rest of the world. This can only be achieved through dialogue and rule of law and not through force or coercion. Now in order to turn Asia into a region for trust and order and not, when the force and coercion I would like in conclusion to make an appeal to Asia and the world. We must, ladies and gentlemen, restrain military expansion in Asia which could otherwise go unchecked. Military budget should be made completely transparent and there should be public disclosure in a form that can be verified. We should create a mechanism for crisis management as well as a communication channel between our armed forces. We must lay down rules that promote actions based on the international law of the sea. Only then I believe can we achieve growth and prosperity in Asia, where all of us can realize our great potential, Japan has sworn an oath. Here again to wage a war. We have never stopped and will continue to be wishing for the world to be at peace. It is my fervent hope that through a binomics we can create a vibrant Japan that can bring up peace and prosperity in the region and in the world. Thank you very much. Thank you Prime Minister Abe. It was quite a comprehensive program which you presented us in order to regain momentum in the Japanese economy and particularly your very concrete reform proposals I think are very promising. Now Prime Minister allow me maybe a very touchy question. You emphasized at the end the need for stability and peace and trust in the region. With your shrine visit it looks to the world that Japan's regional relations with neighboring countries particularly China and South Korea is getting worse. Can I ask you to elaborate maybe for us how in this let's say very tenacious situation you see the future? Not for a very straightforward question. I believe that there is a major misunderstanding concerning the Yasukuni Shrine so allow me to briefly explain to you what kind of place Yasukuni Shrine is. This year marks the centennial anniversary of the end of the First World War and 50 years before that there was this Meiji Revolution and including the Meiji Revolution and the war that in the First and the Second World War the spirit of those perished in these wars are enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine. So I paid respect to those people who had perished in war for the nation and I had prayed for the souls of the departed which I believe is something quite natural for a leader of any country in the world. Now in Yasukuni there is this remembrance memorial in which all the war dead throughout the world are enshrined not just limited to the people in Japan and I have won an oath never again to fight war so that nobody would suffer from the sufferings or nobody would suffer from the devastation of the war. I believe many leaders in Japan have the same feeling. I have no intention whatsoever to hurt the feelings of people in China and also in Korea and we believe that Korea and China are very important neighbors and Korea shares the same value system and they are a free democratic country and since we have these challenges I believe it is very critical to have this summit meeting. The door to dialogue is always open on our side and we would like to with great sincerity and with due courtesy try to continue the dialogue. Just following up what you said I think it was very appreciated and in the best Davos spirit when you were sitting in the sessions this morning of President Madam Park listening to her. Now if I take if I go back to Abenomics you have a one of the highest debt ratios in the world and you have an aging society and it's a moment particularly with your first arrows you are adding to your fiscal deficit. Now what is the end game? Could you just enlighten us how at the end I expressed once you are running and we are all running in the world or trying to run our economies with a big backpack on our shoulders the debts. Now is the backpack so big that one day you will break down or can you get rid of the backpack or at least get some weight out of it? Indeed as you said Professor Schwab Japan has various so difficult challenges that it is faced with. On the debt issue for fiscal consolidation first of all we should reduce and do away with waste. At the same time we have to increase tax revenue. There's no other alternative there's no other way. Japan has experienced prolonged deflation and the tax revenue has continued to diminish common GDP has gone down so it's natural that we see this so we have to end deflation to grow the economy and increase tax revenue and at the same time eliminate waste. This is the policy I have introduced and this is indeed the policy of the three arrows. Fortunately at one time tax revenue which has dropped to 38 trillion yen this year will increase or has increased this fiscal year to 50 trillion yen and furthermore in April we'll be hiking the consumption tax from 5% to 8% in reducing the debt. We have to turn the primary balance into a surplus. The primary balance deficit is still very large compared to the GDP in 2010 by 2015 we want to reduce the deficit of the primary balance to one half and achieving this goal is in the horizon. We have made no waste and we will grow the economy and we will move ahead with the structural reform to grow the economy and that we will increase tax revenue and to consolidate our finances fiscal situation. When we met last time we of course I congratulated you for the Olympic Games and we discussed the possibility of conducting in Japan a Davos for the sports to bring together the best minds of and the best spirits and the best people in the sports and community. And to hold this Davos for the sports in 2017 what are your expectations concerning such an event? The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games will see athletes from all over the world come to Japan and we want to create a situation where they can do their best and they can give their best and at the same time we want to extend hospitality or omotenashi leveraging on Japanese tradition and culture. We want to make these games one which will make its mark in history. Toward the 2020 we hope that Japan will regain vitality so that we want to repay those who have supported us after the disaster by showing how we have recovered and the sports tomorrow, sports for tomorrow is something that we have committed to. This is our contribution to sports. Target is over 10 million people will be ascending sports instructors overseas. This is a plan which is in the making and for we want to provide the support for putting in place the environment conducive to sports. And your proposal on sports for tomorrow and the sports culture Davos conference I would like to definitely extend my cooperation to hold this conference. 2017 the sports Davos so that this is successful I would like to render my fullest cooperation. Thank you very much Prime Minister Rie at the end of our session and I only can tell you all our best wishes accompany you when you are going back now to announce some of those reforms also to push them through the diet and to make them successful and we are sure with your personality with your strengths we will have a new Japan being born under your leadership. Thank you very much Prime Minister.