Japan Govt to Mull Provisional Budget

Tokyo, March 23 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese government will consider compiling a provisional budget in the event that the fiscal 2026 regular budget is not passed by the April 1 start of the year, an official said Monday. “We will consider a provisional budget in preparation for unforeseen circumstances,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara was quoted as telling senior members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Kihara made the remark at a meeting with LDP members, such as Masaji Matsuyama, chairman for the party’s members in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament, and Junichi Ishii, secretary-general for the party in the same Diet chamber. Matsuyama disclosed the remark to reporters. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi aims to enact the regular budget by the end of this month. The draft budget has cleared the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, but the outlook is uncertain in the Upper House, where the LDP-led ruling camp is a minority force. Opposition parties said they would not engage in budget deliberations in the chamber unless the government draws up a provisional budget. But following the news that the government will consider such a budget, Yoshitaka Saito, Diet affairs leader of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told his LDP counterpart, Yoshihiko Isozaki, that the CDP is ready to accept Upper House budget deliberations. The chamber’s Budget Committee is slated to hold a public hearing on the regular budget Tuesday and an intensive deliberation session Wednesday, but the rest of the schedule has yet to be set. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]