TOKYO (MNI) – Japan’s parliament on Monday approved a Y4.02
trillion ($49 billion) supplementary budget for fiscal 2011, the first
in a series of emergency spending packages for funding reconstruction of
northeastern areas wrecked by the March 11 earthquake disaster.
The opposition-controlled House of Councillors passed the budget
and related bills this afternoon after the House of Representatives
approved them on Saturday.
The government will finance the extra budget by slashing outlays
planned in the initial FY2011 budget, without issuing new debt.
The supplementary budget will exceed the first such budget which
funded the reconstruction of western Japanese cities hit by the Great
Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.
The first extra budget will cover the costs for restoring
infrastructure, building temporary housing for the evacuees and clearing
rubble along the northeastern Pacific coast.
The government said last week that its first supplementary budget
for rebuilding quake-hit areas is estimated to push up Japan’s gross
domestic product by a real 0.6 percentage point over a year.
The Cabinet Office also said the budget will create 200,000 jobs
and support firms to maintain 1.5 million existing positions.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan plans to draft more supplementary budgets
later this year.
tokyo@marketnews.com
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