Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga instructed Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Ryota Takeda to proceed with discussions on how to lower mobile phone fees during a meeting at the Prime Minister's Office on Friday.
After the meeting, Takeda told reporters that he intends to urge mobile phone firms to make efforts, saying, "a reduction of about 10% will not [be enough to] lead to reform."
Takeda quoted Suga as saying, "I want you to faithfully commit to implementing measures step by step and achieve a definite result."
During the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, the prime minister had said that the nation's mobile phone rates are among the highest in the world, and that they can be lowered by 40%.
Suga also attended the first liaison meeting of top administrative officials of government ministries and agencies Friday.
He instructed administrative vice ministers to make all-out efforts to implement the administrative and regulatory reforms advocated by the Suga Cabinet. "I hope you will take the lead in shattering bureaucratic sectionalism, and push forward with bold regulatory reform by breaking away from vested interests and unthinking adherence to precedents."
"I want top bureaucrats to listen to the voices of people concerned, and think deeply about what should be done," he said during the meeting.
Suga also said his administration's top priorities are simultaneously preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus and promoting social and economic activities.
He called on the administrative vice ministers to tackle the critical situation in the nation with all their efforts.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato announced that the liaison meeting will be held on a weekly basis, continuing the previous administration's policy.
The meeting has been held once a week in principle at the Prime Minister's Office since the second Abe administration was formed in December 2012.
The government was to make the appointments of senior vice ministers and parliamentary secretaries in each ministry and agency at a Cabinet meeting Friday, naming three political appointees for each ministry and agency.
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