The cross-party Parliamentary Association for Cooperative Development Researches resumed its activities by holding its general assembly on April 20 for the first time in five years since 2012.
Cooperative organizations, particularly those of agricultural cooperatives have been under pressure to reform their business systems and the like, meanwhile people living at local areas including depopulated communities are raising their expectation that cooperatives will play a major role for them in various ways.
Under such conditions, the Parliamentary Association of Diet members aims at promoting legislation supporting the whole of cooperative movements in the country, instead of sector-wise cooperative laws.
For the time being, the Association plans to address immediate challenges such as the enactment of workers’ cooperative law for cooperatives organized by workers with their own share capital.
It is another immediate challenge for the Association to pass a Diet resolution on establishment of cooperative promotion policies by the government.
Diet members of the Association started their discussion on a draft of the Diet resolution to accelerate their efforts aiming at passing the resolution during the current session of the Diet.
The draft of the Diet resolution urges the government to consolidate policies for promoting the whole of cooperative organizations in the country with special emphasis on value and principle of cooperatives, clarification on status of cooperatives as a major contributor for regional societies as well as a leading player for economic development of those societies, and development as a private non-profit sector.