TOKYO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) — Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki on Monday said the government will do all it can to tackle the rising cost of living, as he sought parliamentary approval for an extra budget to finance an economic package.
In a fiscal policy speech to the Diet, the country’s parliament, Suzuki said the economy is facing headwinds from accelerating inflation driven by soaring commodity prices and the yen’s sharp decline.
The Japanese government submitted earlier on Monday a 29.1-trillion-yen (199 billion U.S. dollars) supplementary budget bill for fiscal 2022 to the Diet to fund its economic package chiefly designed to combat surging prices.
“The environment surrounding the Japanese economy is becoming all the more severe. We need to overcome this difficult time by supporting the livelihoods of Japanese people and business activity and put the economy on a path toward sustainable and much higher growth,” the finance minister said.
The government aims to see the draft budget approved by parliament before the current Diet session ends in early December.