Ruling camp aims to pass budget thru Lower House on Wednesday

February 27, 2018

Tokyo- Japan's ruling camp is set to pass the government's fiscal 2018 draft budget through the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of parliament, on Wednesday.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito, hopes to realize full Diet approval of the budget before fiscal 2017 ends on March 31.

The ruling camp plans to adopt the budget at Lower House Budget Committee and plenary meetings on Wednesday and send it to the House of Councillors, the upper chamber.

Meanwhile, the coalition on Tuesday turned down a request from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and five other opposition parties that the planned introduction of work style reform bills be given up during the current ordinary Diet session.

The opposition side rejects the legislation, including expansion of the so-called discretionary work system, because the government used flawed working hour survey data to explain the benefits of the system.

LDP Diet affairs head Hiroshi Moriyama on Tuesday told his CDPJ counterpart, Kiyomi Tsujimoto, again that the ruling camp rejects the opposition's request to defer the introduction of the bills and conduct a fresh working hour survey. Jiji Press