TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s government is set to unveil on Friday its largest ever annual budget with $943 billion in spending for the fiscal year beginning in next April, further straining the industrial world’s heaviest debt, a draft plan seen by Reuters showed.
The first annual budget to be compiled by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government got a boost from COVID-19 countermeasures, social security spending to support a fast-ageing population and military outlays to deal with threats from China.
The 107.6 trillion yen ($942.95 billion) annual budget underscores the challenge for Kishida to realise “new capitalism” with a virtuous cycle of growth and wealth distribution and restore already tattered public finances.
($1 = 114.1100 yen)
(Reporting by Takaya Yamaguchi; Writing by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
