Japanese government runs competition to get young people to drink more alcohol
The government has launched a contest to encourage young people to drink more alcohol...
In most countries, alcohol is one of the things that helps boost the economy.
However, in Japan in recent months, a huge drop in terms of alcohol sales has been experienced and this has negatively affected its liquor tax revenues.
According to Mirror, booze tax revenue in the fiscal 2020 was about $8.4-billion, which is a whopping drop of more than $813-million from the previous year.
To remedy the situation, the government is running a booze competition to get more young people to consume alcohol.
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It has asked the public to come up with ideas to make drinking alcohol more popular, reports NBC News.
The competition is called the "Saka Viva!" campaign. It targets young people between ages 20 and 39 to come up with new ideas to boost the economy through alcohol consumption.
The campaign will be run by the National Tax Agency (NTA) until 9 September.
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According to the website, the coronavirus pandemic contributed to the decline in alcohol consumption. This is because there were times when alcohol consumption was banned and times where bars and other premises selling alcohol were closed temporarily.
"The domestic alcoholic beverage market is shrinking due to demographic changes such as the declining birthrate and ageing population, and lifestyle changes due to the impact of Covid-19," states website.
Those who make it to the final round will be judged by experts in October, before a final tournament in November in Tokyo where the winner will receive support for their plan to be commercialised.
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