Japan expected to pass $1.1 trillion budget

japanparl.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Japan was expected to pass a 90.3 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion) budget on Thursday, with about half the spending financed by new bonds that will add to Japan's massive debt mountain.

The country's ruling centre-left Democratic Party rammed the draft budget for the next fiscal year through the lower house of parliament earlier this month, over objections from opposition parties.

The move means the huge spending plan would be approved even if the opposition-controlled upper house of parliament votes it down as expected.

Decisions by the lower house have priority in case of conflict with the upper house and automatically become law 30 days after being sent to the upper chamber.

Local media have reported that spending for the 2012-13 fiscal year may be Japan's highest ever, reaching more than 96 trillion yen when including extra public spending such as funds for rebuilding the nation's northeast after last year's earthquake and tsunami disaster.

About 49.0 percent of the budget would be financed by issuing new bonds, a plan fiercely contested by opposition lawmakers who are aiming to push Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to call snap elections, reports have said.

The fresh bonds will aggravate Japan's massive public debt, which at about double its gross domestic product is the worst among industrialised nations.

Last week, Japan's cabinet approved a bill to double the nation's sales tax to 10.0 per cent amid efforts to rein in the country's debt.

Noda, Japan's sixth premier in as many years, has warned that the future of the world's third-largest economy rests on tackling its public debt while financing an increasingly expensive social welfare system.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/140307" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-6773b15f05721b16f5eda6f555ed685d" value="form-6773b15f05721b16f5eda6f555ed685d" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85756457" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.