PRESS CONFERENCE
Shigefumi Matsuzawa
Governor of Kanagawa Prefecture

The speech will be in English and Q & A in Japanese with English interpretation.

"Prefectural Politics and U.S. Bases"

Kanagawa's Governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa is an ideas politician and a lot of his thinking chimes with the new national government's policies. That's maybe unsurprising because he was the DPJ's education science and technology spokesman before quitting the Diet to contest the governorship in 2003.

Mr. Matsuzawa wants Japan's 47 prefectures merged into a system of states, say 12, with greater political, legal and financial autonomy. Among other benefits, he says this would devolve power from Kasumigaseki to the regions, an argument the new national government will find attractive. He chairs a panel of governors whose prefectures host US bases and want the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement revised, which again is in line with DPJ policy. He and Chiba's governor are pushing for a maglev train link between Haneda and Narita which, he says, would be a project truly benefiting the nation's advancement, as opposed to wasteful public investment. He wants to outlaw smoking on Kanagawa's beaches.

Still only 51, Mr. Matsuzawa has served two terms as a Kanagawa assemblyman, three in the Diet and last year was re-elected for his second term as governor. He worked for a year on the staff of a US congresswoman in the year of the 1984 presidential election and wrote a book about the election.

Shigefumi Matsuzawa, Governor of Kanagawa Prefecture