PM Takaichi Leaves Open Bond Issuance to Fund Tax Cut

Tokyo, Oct. 19 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday left open the possibility of issuing government bonds to fund the envisaged reduction in the consumption tax on food items.

"We are not ruling out bond issuance" to finance the tax cut, Takaichi told the Budget Committee of the Senate, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament.

She said that the government will "advance a review of both expenditure and revenue within the framework of budget formulation reform, while also closely monitoring tax revenue trends."

"We will appropriately control the annual amount of government bond issuance while scrutinizing the fiscal scale made possible even as the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio is steadily reduced," she added.

Takaichi has repeatedly said that the necessary funds for the tax cut would be secured without relying on deficit-covering bonds.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]