What Is Japan's Economic Security Promotion Council? The Takaichi Government's Five Pillars for Amending the Promotion Act, and How MLIT Contributes to "Energy Autonomy" (2026)

Hello, this is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL. It has been several years now since "economic security" was placed at the center of policy. The place that steers it is the Economic Security Promotion Council. You may have heard the name, but even among practitioners, surprisingly few people can explain who gathers there, on what basis, and what the council actually decides.

First, I will sort out on what basis the Economic Security Promotion Council was established and where it sits within the wider council structure. Next, I will recap the Economic Security Promotion Act itself, the question people search for most, meaning its four existing systems, and then trace the five pillars of the Act amendment that the Takaichi government ordered and how far it has progressed as of 2026. In the second half, I move to the theme of "energy autonomy" that emerges from the direction of a "supply chain that does not depend on any single country" set out in the policy speech, and then to the moves of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), which has ended up playing an unexpected role here. If you mix up the various council bodies, the whole picture becomes distorted, so I will proceed while carefully distinguishing which announcement was made in which forum.

If you want to grasp first how much your own cargo and technology depend on a particular country, taking stock of where you stand with our export-control classification and risk check will make the second half of this article feel far more like your own concern.

What Is the Economic Security Promotion Council?

The Council's Legal Basis and Role

The Economic Security Promotion Council is a council established within the Cabinet Secretariat on the basis of the Prime Minister's decision of November 19, 2021, "Concerning the Convening of the Economic Security Promotion Council."¹ The Prime Minister serves as chair, and the body that runs the secretariat, that is, the office with jurisdiction, is the National Security Secretariat (NSS) of the Cabinet Secretariat. As the reach of national security spreads into the economic sphere, it may help to think of it as a ministerial-level command tower convened to strengthen and advance economic security.

The subjects of discussion have become more concrete with each meeting. The first was on November 19, 2021, and the most recent, the eighth, was on November 7, 2025; there have been eight meetings in total to date. The seventh was on March 7, 2025.² The eighth was the first meeting held since the Takaichi government took office. Is the foundation that supports citizens' lives and economic activity overly dependent on any single country? Are there gaps, from a national security standpoint, in the flow of technology, information, and capital? The Promotion Council is the place where such questions are handled not only within the frame of diplomacy and defense, but in the language of the economy.

The council has also been the starting point for building the system itself. The Economic Security Promotion Act followed a path in which the study of legislation began at the first meeting in November 2021, the Act was enacted on May 11, 2022, and it was promulgated on May 18 of the same month.³ In other words, the Promotion Council is the backbone of policy: it gives birth to laws, reviews how they operate, and points to the direction of the next amendment. Economic-security issues, which individual ministries tend to pursue in an uncoordinated way, are bundled together by the Prime Minister and the NSS. Once you grasp this structure, everything that follows comes into three dimensions.

Sorting Out the Easily Confused Council Bodies

Where people tend to stumble is in telling apart council bodies with very similar names. In search results, "Promotion Council," "Priority Issues Review Meeting," and "NSC" all come up mixed together, so let me direct the traffic first.

The ministerial-level command tower is the Economic Security Promotion Council I have just described. It is chaired by the Prime Minister, with the NSS as its secretariat, and it is where the big policy directions are set. The place that translates those directions into practice is the Economic Security Priority Issues Review Meeting. This is a director-general-level meeting presided over by the Minister in charge of economic security, where concrete matters such as risk reviews of important goods and infrastructure are worked out. On June 11, 2026, its 6th session, bringing together director-general-level officials from 16 ministries and agencies including MLIT, was held, and its results were published on June 15.⁴ The meeting where the Prime Minister waves the flag and the meeting where each ministry's director-generals do the hands-on work are best kept firmly apart.

Even more confusing is the National Security Council (NSC), the command tower for diplomacy and defense. The similarly named National Security Secretariat (NSS) is the secretariat of this NSC, and it also serves as the secretariat of the Economic Security Promotion Council. The fact that the same NSS runs both secretariats does not mean the NSC and the Promotion Council are one and the same body. On top of this, the Act amendment discussed below also envisions establishing expert panels, public-private councils, and a think tank. The ministerial-level Promotion Council, the director-general-level Priority Issues Review Meeting, the NSC for diplomacy and defense, and the group of bodies handling specialist research and analysis: if you sort out the differences in role in your head, you will not be tossed around by the headlines.

A Recap of the Four Existing Systems Under the Economic Security Promotion Act

Before getting into the amendment, let me confirm what the Economic Security Promotion Act actually protects in the first place. Many of you who arrived here by searching for the term are probably looking to understand exactly this foundation.

The Act was enacted on May 11, 2022, and promulgated on May 18 of the same month. Its substance is broadly made up of four systems. The first is ensuring the stable supply of important goods, that is, strengthening supply chains. It designates items that, if cut off, would seriously affect citizens' lives and industry, such as semiconductors, critical minerals, and pharmaceutical raw materials, as "specified critical goods," and backs domestic production, stockpiling, and the diversification of procurement sources. In December 2022, eleven categories of goods, including antimicrobial preparations, semiconductors, storage batteries, and critical minerals, were designated first, and that lineup is reviewed as circumstances change. The second is ensuring the stable provision of core-infrastructure services. When operators that form the foundations of daily life, such as electricity, telecommunications, finance, and railways, introduce important equipment or outsource its maintenance and management, the government reviews it in advance to confirm defenses against cyberattacks and external interference.

The remaining two are systems that protect technology and inventions. The third, supporting the development of advanced critical technologies, is a framework in which the public and private sectors cooperate to advance research and development in technologies that may also bear on national security, such as AI, quantum, space, and the oceans, handling sensitive information through funding support and councils. The fourth, the non-disclosure of patent applications, is a system to prevent the content of sensitive inventions that could lead to nuclear technology or advanced weapons from flowing out through the ordinary patent-disclosure system. The basic guidelines for core-infrastructure services and the non-disclosure of patent applications were adopted by the Cabinet in April 2023, and the core-infrastructure system began operating in May 2024.³ The systems have thus come online in stages, and the amendment now under discussion lies on the extension of that line, seeking to broaden and deepen these four pillars further.

The Five Pillars of the Act Amendment, and How Far It Has Progressed as of 2026

The Direction of the Amendment the Prime Minister Set Out at the Eighth Meeting

What came into focus at the eighth meeting was the amendment of the Economic Security Promotion Act. On November 7, 2025, Prime Minister Takaichi noted that more than three years had passed since the Act's enactment and that the international situation "continues to change at ever greater speed and complexity," and instructed Minister Onoda in charge of economic security to begin a review toward amending the Promotion Act as soon as possible.⁵ The policy of "doing" the amendment was clearly stated from the Prime Minister's own mouth.

In the remarks published by the Prime Minister's Office, part of the direction is described concretely. On strengthening supply chains, the Prime Minister touched on reviving shipbuilding capacity and securing critical minerals; on revising the stable provision of core infrastructure, she raised improving the security of medical infrastructure; and she further set out creating a comprehensive think tank.⁵ These three points are not media interpretation but a primary source that can be confirmed as the Prime Minister's own words. That the word "medical care" came from the Prime Minister's mouth is no small thing. Through the experience of responding to infectious diseases and supplying pharmaceuticals, medical care has clearly begun to be recognized as an object of national security.

The Five Pillars as Reported, and Where the Diet Deliberations Stand

The overall picture of the amendment is organized more broadly in reporting as "five pillars": strengthening supply chains, revising the core-infrastructure system, supporting the overseas expansion of important projects, creating a think tank, and protecting data.⁶ It is easiest to understand this as the three points confirmable in the Prime Minister's remarks plus overseas-expansion support and data protection. On revising the core-infrastructure system, the reported direction is to expand the scope of prior review from the current 15 fields to 16 by adding medical care; on data protection, to build a framework preventing the outflow of important personal data such as financial, genomic, and location data; and on overseas-expansion support, to provide financial support for services such as laying submarine cables. These are each reported as items under review. That said, I want to note in advance that from here on this is an outlook based on reporting, not content finalized as statutory text. I follow the overall picture of the amendment in detail in The Amendment of the Economic Security Promotion Act, and I separately cover the Japanese version of CFIUS, which comes up as a theme overlapping with the five pillars, in The Launch of Japan's CFIUS.

So how far has that amendment actually progressed? This is the point I most wanted to update from the first edition. Following the Prime Minister's instruction (November 2025), review by an expert panel proceeded, and reporting held that the government intended to submit an amendment bill to the ordinary Diet session in 2026. As of July 2026, however, I can find no primary source confirming that the amendment has actually been enacted. If anything, at the 6th Priority Issues Review Meeting on June 11, 2026, establishing a review cycle in cooperation with a think tank and public-private councils "to be established" under the Promotion Act was still discussed in the future tense.⁴ In other words, it is natural to see the amendment process as having continued at least up to this point. What in late 2025 was an amendment "about to begin" has, more than half a year on, still not fully stood up as a system. Grasping this gap in temperature accurately is the premise for how companies should prepare.

At the same 6th meeting, further deepening and upgrading the risk reviews of important goods and infrastructure, and diversifying the risk scenarios, also came up as points of discussion. In addition, the results of a tabletop exercise conducted at an interagency liaison meeting on responding to large-scale infrastructure failures, held on April 28, 2026, were introduced.⁴ It is worth noting that, in parallel with building the framework of the systems, drills that assume contingencies that could actually happen have begun to move.

The Theme of Energy Autonomy

Looking at the five pillars, behind words like supply chains, overseas expansion, and infrastructure, a single common motive shows through. It is the idea of wanting to escape a state of being held by a particular country. Where that appears most acutely is in the field of energy.

On February 20, 2026, in his policy speech to the 221st session of the Diet, Prime Minister Takaichi presented, side by side as targets of expansionary fiscal policy, "crisis-management investment" that minimizes risks such as economic security, food security, and energy-resource security, and "growth investment" in areas such as AI, semiconductors, and shipbuilding.⁷ In other words, he spoke of defensive investment and offensive investment on the same footing. As concrete measures to counter economic coercion, he set out, at the core, rebuilding a supply chain that does not depend on any single country and strengthening cooperation with like-minded countries to break free from dependence, together with support for important services such as laying submarine cables, strengthening the core-infrastructure system, building a comprehensive think-tank function, and creating a Japanese version of CFIUS (the Committee on Foreign Investment in Japan).⁷ You can see that the direction of the amendment shown at the Promotion Council and the picture drawn by the policy speech overlap cleanly. Let me add one caveat: the policy speech itself does not directly refer to "amending" the Promotion Act. The instruction to amend was set out in the separate context of the November meeting, and it would be inaccurate to blend the two and read it as "the policy speech declared the amendment."

Focused on energy, the speech goes further. Accelerate the restart of reactors whose safety has been confirmed, and advance the concrete development of next-generation innovative reactors. Build domestic supply chains for perovskite solar cells and next-generation geothermal power, and work on utilizing the seabed rare-earth resources lying in the waters around Minamitorishima.⁷ Each of these is a preparatory move so that the procurement of fuel, resources, and components is not left entirely to a particular country overseas. Nuclear power, next-generation solar cells, geothermal, seabed resources: the lineup may look scattered, but what runs through all of them comes down to a single point, raising the proportion that can be supplied domestically.

Energy autonomy is a story about decarbonization, and at the same time a story about logistics and infrastructure: from where do you carry what, where do you store it, and how do you use it. However much the technology of power generation advances, without the vessels to bring it ashore, transmit it, and store it, it ends as a picture of a rice cake. When you reframe it this way, the name of an unexpected ministry comes to the fore, one that is not the competent authority for resources or energy. That is MLIT.

MLIT's Contribution: Carbon Neutral Ports, Hydrogen Receiving at Ports, and Offshore Wind Base Ports

Here, too, you must be careful not to confuse the council bodies. The stage on which MLIT set out its contribution measures toward energy autonomy was not the Economic Security Promotion Council. On April 27, 2026, MLIT Minister Kaneko submitted to the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy the material "Advancing Infrastructure Development to Make the Japanese Archipelago Strong and Prosperous," and within it, under "Contribution to Energy Security," set out "Mobility Enerlink (tentative name), aimed at improving energy autonomy."⁸ I want to note that this is at the stage of a concept under a tentative name, not a finalized measure with budget scale or a timeline set in stone.

The three concrete measures MLIT listed for the concept are as follows. Promoting the installation of perovskite solar cells using infrastructure spaces; developing hydrogen use and receiving facilities for hydrogen and the like at ports; and supporting the introduction of FCV (fuel-cell vehicle) and EV commercial vehicles, along with implementing systems that supply power while driving.⁸ The idea is to reorganize the "places" under MLIT's jurisdiction, such as roads, ports, and parking lots, into networks for generation, receiving, and charging and discharging. In the same material, MLIT also set out, taking economic security into account, a public-private investment roadmap for port logistics and shipbuilding: strengthening the competitiveness of international container strategic ports through the automation and remote operation of port cargo-handling machinery and digital standardization via Cyber Port, and the revival of the shipbuilding industry. It would support the development of production systems for next-generation vessels and the improvement of ship-repair capacity through mechanisms such as a shipbuilding-industry revival fund, connecting this to the realization of zero-emission vessels and bunkering vessels fueled by hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol, in order to secure stable international maritime transport.⁸ There is a strong emphasis on retempering transport infrastructure itself as a national-security asset.

Decarbonizing ports is further along than the concept stage, with hands already moving. A carbon neutral port (CNP) is a port that seeks to upgrade port functions with decarbonization in mind and to develop receiving facilities for hydrogen, ammonia, and the like; MLIT is advancing their formation under goals such as carbon neutrality by 2050.⁹ In March 2025, the MLIT Ports and Harbours Bureau published the "Guidelines on Developing Receiving Facilities for Hydrogen and Ammonia at Ports (Interim Summary)," setting out guidance for port managers and private operators when they consider developing receiving hubs.¹⁰ In the same month, it also created the "CNP Certification (Container Terminals)" system to objectively evaluate the decarbonization of container terminals.¹¹ The flow is one of building, starting from ports, the gateways through which next-generation fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia are received into the country.

Offshore wind, too, is tied to ports from a supply-chain standpoint. The system of base ports for offshore wind power generation, formally base ports for marine renewable energy power generation facilities, was created in February 2020 under the Port and Harbour Act. It is a mechanism by which wharves at base ports designated by the MLIT minister are leased to power-generation operators over the long term and stably. On April 26, 2024, the ports of Aomori and Sakata were newly designated, bringing the total to seven together with the previously designated ports of Akita, Noshiro, Kashima, Niigata, and Kitakyushu.¹² The introduction targets themselves are set out on the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) side: the Offshore Wind Industry Vision of December 2020 sets goals of forming 10 GW of projects by 2030 and 30 to 45 GW, including floating types, by 2040.¹³ That said, the introduction of offshore wind has also seen headwinds surface, such as soaring materials prices and pressure on profitability, and it is reported that whether projects will proceed as originally envisioned has become harder to foresee. The meaning of preparing the base ports as vessels ahead of time may, if anything, lie precisely there. MLIT prepares the bases where enormous turbines are assembled and sent out to sea, and the energy authorities draw the generation targets. On top of this division of roles, a single line called energy autonomy is connected. The question of how to bundle this kind of governance over information and procurement is contiguous with The Economic Security Center and Export-Control Governance and The Establishment of the National Intelligence Council.

Implications for Companies: Reviewing Supply Chains and Infrastructure Procurement

Pulling all of this toward the corporate perspective, two pieces of homework come into view. One is supply chains, the other is infrastructure procurement.

On the supply-chain side, the starting point is to make visible, in peacetime, which of the technologies, cargo, and services your company handles carry dependence on a particular country. Given that the first of the five pillars of the Act amendment is strengthening supply chains, and that the policy speech sets out rebuilding a supply chain that does not depend on any single country, taking stock of dependence also overlaps with what policy is asking for. From which country does each component come, are there alternative procurement sources, and which transactions include sensitive technology? At its root, this is the same work as classification (applicability determination) and counterparty screening in export control. What our export-control AI agent TRAFEED supports day to day is exactly this visualization: in line with METI's standards, it systematizes the classification of cargo and technology, determinations under list controls and catch-all controls, and screening of end users. I feel that the more a company already runs daily export determinations, the more easily it can repurpose that same foundation for reviewing its supply chain. Of course, the final classification is made by your company's export-control officer; the tool stays in the role of quickly assembling the materials for that judgment.

The infrastructure-procurement side is a slightly higher-altitude story. Moves such as hydrogen and ammonia receiving at ports, offshore wind base ports, and CNP certification are, for companies involved in logistics and electric power, signals that the premises of procurement and siting will change going forward. How will your company connect to the supply chain for next-generation fuels, and will decarbonization compliance be built into the criteria by which counterparties select partners? MLIT's "Mobility Enerlink" is still a concept under a tentative name, but I have watched many times as concepts, like CNPs and base ports, settle into frameworks of systems and subsidies. Rather than scrambling once things start moving, finishing the review first is faster in the end. If you would like to take stock of export control, supply chains, and infrastructure procurement as a single connected issue, please reach out through a consultation. You can review an overview of the features in the TRAFEED service catalog (PDF).

Let me redraw the bird's-eye view one last time. The Economic Security Promotion Council was a command tower of policy bundled by the Prime Minister and the NSS. Beneath it, the director-general-level Priority Issues Review Meeting reviews the risks of goods and infrastructure as a matter of practice. The direction of the amendment, shown on the foundation of the Act's four existing systems, meshes with the "supply chain that does not depend on any single country" of the policy speech and converges toward the theme of energy autonomy. Receiving that theme in on-the-ground infrastructure are MLIT's CNPs, hydrogen receiving at ports, and offshore wind base ports. The abstract discussions in the meeting room and the cargo-handling machinery and wharves moving at ports are, in fact, connected by a single line.

If I may add one thing, my read is that it is better not to leave this kind of policy as "something the state does." In the flow of reducing supply-chain dependence and shifting the premises of infrastructure procurement, before the amendment has even fully stood up as a system, there will be a clear gap in response cost over the next several years between companies that have taken stock of their technologies, cargo, and procurement structures and those that have not. Translate distant policy talk into your own review checklist. That steady, unglamorous work is, I believe, the most realistic preparation a company can make in an age of economic security.

References

Footnotes

1. Economic Security Promotion Council — Cabinet Secretariat — November 19, 2021 (Prime Minister's decision) ↩

2. Economic Security Promotion Council (status of the 1st to 8th meetings) — Cabinet Secretariat — November 7, 2025 (8th) ↩

3. Economic Security Promotion Act (enactment, promulgation, basic guidelines for the four systems, start of operation) — Cabinet Office — May 18, 2022 (promulgation) ↩ ↩²

4. Convening of the 6th Economic Security Priority Issues Review Meeting (results) — Cabinet Secretariat — published June 15, 2026 ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. November 7, 2025 Economic Security Promotion Council (PM Takaichi's amendment instruction and remarks) — Prime Minister's Office — November 7, 2025 ↩ ↩²

6. Data protection and supply-chain strengthening, PM Takaichi "respond swiftly": instructs amendment of the Economic Security Act (reporting on the five pillars) — Nikkei — November 7, 2025 ↩

7. February 20, 2026 Policy Speech by Prime Minister Takaichi at the 221st session of the Diet — Prime Minister's Office — February 20, 2026 ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. Material 3 "Advancing Infrastructure Development to Make the Japanese Archipelago Strong and Prosperous" (material submitted by temporary member Kaneko) — Cabinet Office, Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy — April 27, 2026 ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. Ports: Formation of Carbon Neutral Ports (CNP) — MLIT — June 30, 2025 ↩

10. Publication of the "Guidelines on Developing Receiving Facilities for Hydrogen and Ammonia at Ports (Interim Summary)" — MLIT — March 24, 2025 ↩

11. Ports: CNP Certification (Container Terminals) — MLIT — March 31, 2025 ↩

12. Aomori Port and Sakata Port designated as base ports — promoting the introduction of offshore wind power — MLIT — April 26, 2024 ↩

13. Progress of offshore wind policy to date (material of the Offshore Wind Subcommittee, Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and Energy) — METI, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy — 2024 ↩