Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attended the final meeting of the Tokyo Stock Exchange on the 30th, and indicated his policy, “Next year will be the first year of a plan to double asset income, and we will drastically shift from savings to investment.” It will be the first time in nine years that a prime minister has attended the meeting since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2013.
The Kishida administration is pushing ahead with system reforms to redirect deposits and cash, which account for more than half of household financial assets totaling ¥2,000 trillion, to investments.
One of the pillars of next year’s tax reform will be the permanentization of the NISA (tax exemption system for small investments). In addition to making the period during which profits from financial products are exempt from taxation indefinitely, we have revised the annual investment amount and the upper limit of the tax exempt holding limit significantly.
Currently, the number of NISA accounts is about 17 million, and the cumulative purchase amount is 28 trillion yen. The government aims to double this in five years.
Prime Minister Kishida said that the role of the Tokyo Stock Exchange is important for achieving the target, saying, “To make the market more attractive to investors, we are working to reform the market, improve corporate governance, enhance disclosure, and diversify listed products. I would like you to proceed firmly,” he said.
The Nikkei Stock Average on this day finished trading at 26,094.50 yen, 83 yen higher than the previous day, falling below the end of the previous year for the first time in four years.