Japan FY 2020 budget bill to pass lower House Friday

February 28, 2020

Tokyo--Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and major opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan agreed Thursday to vote on the government's fiscal 2020 budget bill at a plenary meeting of the House of Representatives the following day.

The budget bill is set to be approved by a majority vote with support mainly from the LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito, and sent to the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the nation's parliament, from the all-important Lower House.

Ahead of Thursday's agreement struck between Diet affairs chiefs of the LDP and the CDPJ, a no-confidence motion against Justice Minister Masako Mori and a censure motion against Yasufumi Tanahashi, who chairs the Lower House Budget Committee, were both voted down mainly by the ruling camp.

The LDP and CDPJ Diet affairs chiefs also agreed to hold Lower House Budget Committee meetings in April and May to discuss issues involving the novel coronavirus.

The ruling coalition initially aimed at passing the budget bill through the Lower House on Thursday. But it had to take time to deal with the no-confidence and censure motions submitted by major opposition parties.

The budget proposal will be approved first at a Lower House Budget Committee meeting to be attended by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and then introduced to the full session of the chamber.

If the Lower House passes the budget bill by Monday, it will be automatically enacted before the new fiscal year starts on April 1 thanks to a constitutional provision stipulating the superiority of the lower chamber.

The bill calls for the government's record general-account expenditures of over 102 trillion yen to fund, among others, a free preschool education program introduced along with the consumption tax hike from 8 pct to 10 pct in October last year. Jiji Press