Abe vows to speed up reconstruction in Fukushima

March 11, 2018

Katsurao, Fukushima Pref.- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed Saturday his government's determination to accelerate disaster reconstruction efforts in Fukushima Prefecture.

Abe noted that evacuation advisories have been lifted in most parts of Fukushima, excluding areas heavily contaminated with the radioactive fallout from the nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 plant.

"Still, many people are being forced to live tough lives as evacuees," Abe told reporters in the Fukushima village of Katsurao. "We'll speed up the reconstruction."

In the city of Date earlier on Saturday, Abe attended the opening ceremony of a section of the planned 45-kilometer Soma-Fukushima highway in the northeastern prefecture being promoted as a state project to support reconstruction from the March 2011 disasters.

Later at a port in the coastal city of Soma, Abe tasted locally grown green laver, shipments of which restarted in February for the first time in seven years.

During talks with the president of a precision equipment manufacturer and other people in Minamisoma, Abe informed them of government plans to cut patent fees by three-quarters for small businesses supporting a new business creation initiative in Fukushima's Hamadori coastal region.

Proceeding to Katsurao, the prime minister visited an elementary school and a junior high school that are set to reopen in April. He held talks with students and parents.

Abe was visiting Fukushima to take a firsthand look at progress in reconstruction work ahead of the seventh anniversary on Sunday of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear accident. Jiji Press