TOKYO: Newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will work to get his flagship new digital technology agency running by autumn 2021, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Friday (Sep 18), a sign the project is among the top priorities in his reform agenda.
Creating an agency to accelerate the digitalisation of Japan's outdated government administration has been a key pledge of Suga, who was elected as premier on Wednesday.
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The agency will spearhead efforts to make administrative work more IT-friendly, and speed up the process by consolidating various functions spread across many ministries, the paper said.
READ: Commentary: We may have underestimated Japan's new prime minister Yoshihide Suga
To prepare for the launch of the new agency, the government will create a committee that may be headed by an expert from the private sector, the paper said without citing sources.
Suga's administration plans to submit a bill for creating the agency in an ordinary parliament session that convenes in January next year, the Nikkei said.
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In Japan, less than 12 per cent of administrative work is transacted online, according to think tank Japan Research Institute.
