Our View of Political Contributions

With the globalization of the economy and the global-scale environmental and social problems that have emerged, the role that politics plays in creating a better world is becoming all the more important.

As one aspect of our corporate responsibility, Panasonic makes voluntary political donations. Following Nippon Keidanren (Japan Economic Federation) 's perspective on political contributions, our purpose is to encourage policy integrity, the healthy development of representative democracy, and transparency in political donations.

In deciding which particular political parties to donate to, we use the ten policy issues deemed important in Nippon Keidanren's "Priority Policy Issues" to evaluate a party's policies before making a donation to their political fund raisers.

The 10 priority policies were made public in January 2009, and they are as follows:

1. 1.Stimulation of the economy and stabilize the financial system through large scale economic measures, and promote radical tax and fiscal reform
2. 2.Establishment of a secure and sustainable social-security system and measures to counter the decline in the birthrate
3. 3.Regulatory reform and public-private partnership to make full use of private-sector dynamism, realization of electronic administration, and upgrading of economic legislation
4. 4.Promotion of innovation to for enhancing international competitiveness of industry
5. 5.Advancement of truly effective resource and energy policies and promotion of environmental measures to bring about a sustainable, vibrant society
6. 6.Educational reforms that nurture people who possess charitable spirit, broad mind, and individuality
7. 7.Strengthening of the employment safety net and promotion of employment and labor policies that harness the diverse potential of individuals
8. 8.Introduction of a system of states in Japan and establishment of attractive regional economic zones
9. 9.Promotion of trade, investment, and economic-cooperation policies to appropriately cope with intense global competition
10. 10.Promotion of strategic diplomacy and national-security, building consensus for revision of the constitution