The government set up a panel Monday to develop a big-picture national reconstruction plan following the Great East Japan Earthquake.
The government set up a panel Monday to develop a big-picture national reconstruction plan following the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Makoto Iokibe, president of the National Defense Academy of Japan, was named chairman of the panel, which is expected to compile its first package of proposals in June.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan met with Iokibe for about 50 minutes Monday and told him, "We hope that a good blueprint can be presented to us because the public has high expectations."
At a Monday news conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said, "It will be important to put together a comprehensive vision that will give hope to the disaster victims and that can be shared by the entire public."
Architect Tadao Ando and Takashi Mikuriya, a political science professor at the University of Tokyo, were chosen as deputy chairmen.
Among the 12 members appointed to the panel are the governors of the three prefectures that suffered the greatest damage--Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.
The philosopher Takeshi Umehara will serve as honorary chairman.
In explaining how panel members were selected, Edano said, "We have gathered the wisdom from around the nation, with an emphasis on those who have close ties to the Tohoku region."
A study group will be established under the panel and will be made up of scholars as well as representatives from the business and labor sectors.
The model for the panel is the Hanshin Awaji Reconstruction Committee that put together a proposal for redeveloping urban areas after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995.
It remains to be seen what will happen when the panel's proposals are submitted. The government has yet to establish a headquarters to handle implementation of reconstruction measures.
It is also unclear how much cooperation the Kan government can expect from opposition parties that have taken a more confrontational stance following the results of Sunday's unified local elections in which the ruling Democratic Party of Japan did poorly.