The report comes after Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki on Friday said Japan must stick to its target of a primary budget surplus by the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2025, even as a planned increase in defence spending raises the spectre of worsening already dire public finances.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government has decided to double annual defence spending to 2% of gross domestic product within five years, pushing military outlays to record highs just as bulging welfare spending strains public finances.
Japan is saddled with the industrial world’s heaviest public debt at more than twice the size of its $5 trillion economy, the world’s third largest.
Kishida’s Cabinet plans to compile a draft annual budget as soon as Friday, with the aim of presenting it to parliament early in 2023 and winning approval by the end of the current fiscal year on March 31.
Several rounds of coronavirus stimulus spending measures have bloated fiscal spending by 1.4 times the amount of an initial budget spending plan.
That has jeopardised the goal of achieving a primary budget balance excluding new bond sales and debt servicing by the fiscal year through March 2026.
($1 = 137.1400 yen)
Source: Economy - investing.com
