The Regional Assembly showed its solidarity with the Japanese co-operative movement by adopting the following resolution - “We, cooperators participating in the 12th Regional Assembly of the International Cooperative Alliance Asia and Pacific in New Delhi on November 18, 2016, express our deep concern on the Japanese Government’s move that may interfere with the autonomy and independence of cooperatives and express our strong support for the Japanese Co-operative Movement.”
Earlier, the following statement was read out by Mr. Akira Banzai.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about the recent attempt in Japan to try to demutualize agricultural cooperatives in Japan and I hope you can share our sense of crisis through my report. About three years ago, there was a similar move in Japan where the government wanted to dismantle multi-purpose agricultural cooperatives in Japan. When that happened, the ICA global board was very supportive to our fight against the move. The ICA global board sent a delegation to Japan and also supported us in organizing seminars. In June 2014, the ICA issued a statement saying that the Japanese government’s move totally ignored the cooperative values and principles. At that time, many member organizations from the Asia-Pacific region were very supportive to us as well. We received kind letters of support from member organizations of China, India, Korea, Mongolia, etc. I would like to take opportunity to thank you all again for the support that you gave us. As a result of all your support, when the Japanese government announced its official policy in June 2014, they still wanted the credit business of the multi-purpose agricultural cooperatives to be separated and transferred out and they still wanted to see agricultural cooperatives’ status to be converted to limited companies, but they did not make it compulsory in the policy. They left it to members to decide. On our part, under the amended agricultural cooperative law that came into effect in April 2016, agricultural cooperatives have been actively promoting their own business reform.
However, just last week, on 11 November, the advisory council to the prime minister, the Regulatory Reform Promoting Council, issued a new draft recommendation for further reform of agricultural cooperatives. In the new recommendation, they want Zennoh, the national federation of economic business of agricultural cooperatives, to stop their joint purchase business. They also want Zennoh to convert their marketing business from consignment sales to purchase sales. They want these to be compulsory. The recommendation also says that, if there is no progress, they want the government to set up a new organization (a second Zennoh). The recommendation further says that the credit business of multi-purpose agricultural cooperatives should be transferred to the Norinchukin Bank, which is the national federation of credit business of agricultural cooperatives. The recommendation wants to see a reduction in the number of the agricultural cooperatives engaged in credit business to half of the current number in the coming three years. All these proposals are unfair interference to private organizations such as agricultural cooperatives and they go totally against the cooperative principle about autonomy and independence. This draft recommendation is still a draft of the advisory council and will be studied by the ruling parties. We will also have a chance to express our views representing agricultural cooperatives, before the government makes its final decision at the end of this month, November 2016. Having very grave sense of crisis, JA-Zenchu will work with other cooperatives in Japan to express strong opposition to these proposals. At the same time we are implementing our own business reform and organizational reform.
We would like to inform this development in Japan to the ICA global board as well to share our experiences with cooperators around the world. I hope you continue to give us understanding and support.
