Tokyo, May 28 (IANS) The Japanese government is planning to present a second supplementary budget of between $45.3 billion and $90.7 billion for this fiscal year, an official said on Saturday.
The government is expected to present the budget in a special legislative session after Upper House elections in the summer, according to local news agency Kyodo.
The new supplementary budget will be used to fund more public work projects and will be the second such budget for the present fiscal year after the approval of a $7 billion budget to finance reconstruction of areas in southwestern Japan affected by the mid-April earthquakes, EFE news reported.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had raised the idea of another supplementary budget following discussions with G7 leaders during a two-day summit at Ise-Shima National Park which ended Friday.
At the summit, Abe said the current economic outlook is similar to the global financial scenario after the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008, and expressed concern about the weakness of global demand and domestic consumption, the main engines of the world's third largest economy.
Abe is expected to postpone an increase in Japan's value-added tax (VAT) scheduled for April, due to fear it may choke the country's recovery at a time the effects of 'Abenomics', the economic programme of the Japanese government to end deflation, are being blurred by the fall in oil prices.
