Japan plans to trim overall spending on defense and overseas aid as part of efforts to get its huge public debt under control, but will boost outlays on ballistic missile defense to cope with a growing threat from North Korea.
It is the first budget under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has said his focus would be on stimulating economic growth and not the fiscal belt-tightening of his reformist predecessor Junichiro Koizumi.
Japan's defense spending will fall by 0.3 percent to ¥4.798 trillion (US$40.7 billion) in in the year from April 1, compared with this year's ¥4.814 trillion, according to a draft budget released by the Finance Ministry yesterday.
The budget includes measures such as rationalizing equipment procurement in a bid to trim costs, but also boosts spending aimed at responding to regional security risks and possible terrorist attacks.
Money for ballistic missile defense systems will increase sharply by 30.5 percent from the current year to 182.6 billion yen because of rising threats from North Korea, a finance ministry official said.
Abe has built his career on taking a hard line on North Korea and has vowed to rewrite the nation's US-imposed 1947 Constitution in which Japan renounced war.
Spending for guarding against possible terrorist and guerrilla attacks will rise 9.2 percent to 81.1 billion yen.
The draft budget also earmarks 7.2 billion yen for a planned relocation of US troops from Japan to Guam, part of a broader reorganization of US forces globally.
Most of the budget negotiations were held before parliament passed bills last week to upgrade the Defense Agency to a full-fledged ministry next year.
The change in the ministry's status will enable it to take direct charge of requesting the annual military budget.
Japan's defense spending is around the world's fourth highest after the US, China and Russia.
The pacifist Constitution has limited Japan's military forces to a low profile at home and abroad.
The draft also showed the general account budget for official development assistance (ODA) will decline 4 percent from this year to ¥729.3 billion, the lowest since the 1988-1989 fiscal year.
Japan is still on course to achieve its self-imposed goal of increasing net overseas aid by US$10 billion over the five years to 2009, a finance ministry official said.
The blueprint for the budget, totalling ¥82.91 trillion, goes through last-minute negotiations among ministries this week and will be made into an official government draft after minor modifications.
The final draft is expected to be approved by the Cabinet on Sunday and will be submitted to parliament early next year.
Japan's public debt is the highest among industrialized nations after the government spent trillions of yen on emergency spending packages to haul the economy out of its deflation doldrums in the 1990s.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS