Japan OKs record $317 B extra budget for COVID, economy

Tokyo, Dec. 20 (BNA): Japan’s parliament on Monday approved a record 36 trillion yen ($317 billion) extra budget for the fiscal year through March to help families and businesses affected by the pandemic.

The budget is largely dedicated to funding COVID-19 measures, including booster vaccines and oral medications. It also includes cash payments to families with children and a promotional campaign for the hard-hit tourism industry.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the supplementary budget aims to revive an economy that has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic and achieve stronger growth and a more equitable distribution of wealth under his “new capitalism” policy, according to the Associated Press.

Under Kishida, the government has tightened border controls to help avoid cases of the fast-spreading omicron virus, having managed to sharply reduce infection levels in the past few months.

The budget includes 100,000 yen ($880) in payments to families with children 18 or younger and 2.5 million yen ($22,000) in support for businesses that have suffered major sales losses due to the pandemic. It will also pay to increase the salaries of nurses and other caregivers.

It has allocated 617 billion yen ($5.4 billion) to promote semiconductor manufacturing within Japan as the country moves to improve its economic security and address shortages of computer chips essential for a wide range of products. The budget will also finance tourism promotion, sustainability and digitization.

Japan, with a population of 126 million, has reported about 1.73 million cases of COVID-19 and 18,400 deaths since the epidemic began two years ago.

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