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Two Committees and Two Councils

Finance Committee

The Finance Committee is one of the two important arms of the Board of Directors in running the affairs of the Forum. The Finance Committee is composed of Mr. Imai Takashi and 18 other members. It has always been a powerful and reliable organ of the Forum for maintaining the financial health of the Forum. The members of the Finance Committee are as follows;

Members of the Finance Committee

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee also plays an important role in running the affairs of the Forum. The Steering Committee is composed of Mr. Ogasawara Toshiaki, Prof. Hakamada Shigeki and 14 other members. It helps the Board to identify the role of the Forum in the changing world. It specifically makes a proposal on the theme of the policy recommendations to be adopted by the Policy Council and screens the Policy Council member candidates. The members of the Steering Committee are as follows.

Members of the Steering Committee

Policy Council

The Policy Council conducts policy research and helps its members to produce policy recommendations. After a theme is proposed by the Steering Committee and adopted by the Policy Council, the Policy Council organizes a series of hearings. It invites qualified persons on the theme to brief its members on the perspective they have. During and after those hearings, a Task Force headed by a member of the Policy Council and staffed by research fellows of the Forum, makes an intensive in-depth analysis of the issue and works out an interim draft of the policy recommendations.
The full members of the Policy Council receive and read the Task Force draft recommendations and deliberate on it intensively. Counselors of the Policy Council, who are in most cases senior government officials, are invited to attend the Policy Council to give advice on the contents of the policy studies under deliberation. However, they are not members of the Policy Council and they neither sign nor take responsibility for the recommendations. When more than two thirds of the full members of the Policy Council endorse the draft or its revision, it is approved and becomes the recommendations of those members of the Policy Council who sign it.
Therefore, it should be noted that the Forum itself does not take any position on questions of foreign policy. The Forum publicly announces the contents of the recommendations at a press conference following its presentation of the recommendations to the Prime Minister of Japan. The Forum also mails it to about 6,000 opinion leaders both in Japan and abroad.

Members of the Policy Council

Emergency Policy Council

As it takes more than a year for the Policy Council to complete its process of producing recommendations on any specific theme, the theme taken up by the Policy Council tends to be a strategic and /or long-term issue. It was in this context that the Emergency Policy Council was set up in addition to the Policy Council to deal with emergency and/or short-term issues. The Emergency Policy Council is composed of Prof. Takubo Tadae and 14 other members. It took an initiative in organizing a National Committee to call for the "Tariffication of the Importation of Rice," which in turn announced a public appeal signed by 113 opinion leaders from intellectual, media, business and other circles of Japan. On February 2, 1993 it printed its appeal in an opinion advertisement page of the Yomiuri, Mainichi, Sankei and Nihon Keizai Shimbuns. Their names are listed as follows; Members of the Emergency Policy Council

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