Some tangible progress is being made.
---------------------- Forwarded by Nicholas O'Day/AP/Enron on 05/31/2001 
10:21 AM ---------------------------


Mika Watanabe
05/30/2001 10:38 AM
To: Nicholas O'Day/AP/Enron@Enron, Mark Crowther/AP/Enron@Enron, Llewelyn 
Hughes/AP/Enron@Enron, Tom Fitzgibbon/AP/Enron@Enron, Michael 
Grimes/AP/Enron@Enron, Takashi Kimura/AP/Enron@Enron
cc: Joseph P Hirl/AP/ENRON@ENRON 

Subject: JFTC To Boost Staff As Probe Requests Rise


Wednesday, May 30, 2001
FTC To Boost Staff By 40% As Probe Requests Rise 
TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Fair Trade Commission will increase its staff by 40% from 
the current 570 to 800 in five years under its medium-term plan, The Nihon 
Keizai Shimbun learned Tuesday.
In particular, the FTC aims to beef up its inspection functions to prevent 
illegal activities, such as price cartels and obstruction of entry into the 
information and data communications market. The upgraded inspection ability 
will also speed up the screening of mega-mergers for approval, thus helping 
accelerate ongoing industrial realignment in Japan.
Most of the planned increases will come in Tokyo, where the number of 
inspection division personnel investigating cases such as cartels will be 
doubled from the current 200.
With deregulation, the number of filings from businesses requesting FTC 
probes has increased sharply. In fiscal 2000, such filings totaled 2,878, up 
33.7% from a year earlier. But in many cases, personnel shortages prevented 
the FTC from making thorough investigations or it took too long to complete 
them.
The plan will also enhance the FTC's ability to protect consumers. With the 
expansion of online shopping, the number of products with misleading labels 
has increased sharply. The FTC will increase the number of personnel to 
oversee and prevent such malpractice.
The FTC will seek to have the proposals in the plan incorporated into a set 
of guidelines to be compiled in late June by the Council on Economic and 
Fiscal Policy headed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
q