TOKYO
Japan’s parliament passed a record 96.34 trillion yen ($793.47 billion) budget for the coming year on Friday, local media reported.
The budget was passed by a majority vote in the Diet’s lower House of Representatives, Kyodo news agency reported. Deliberations are due to start in the upper House of Councillors.
The budget had been delayed after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called a general election on Dec. 14 last year.
The budget is aimed at fighting deflation and boosting economic growth amid increasing social security costs.
Despite a delay in a 10 percent sales tax hike to April 2017, the government is likely to achieve its key target of halving the ratio between the deficit and gross domestic product.
Nearly a quarter – 23.45 trillion yen – of the budget is to be allocated to servicing the cost of the national debt.
Social security costs, including burgeoning spending on pensions and medical care, will rise 3.3 percent from last year to a record 31.53 trillion yen.
Defense spending will also climb 2 percent to a record 4.98 trillion yen, up for the third consecutive year, as Abe aims to strengthen the military in the face of China’s increasingly assertive maritime claims.
