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Japan's Cabinet approves FY 2016 budget guidelines

Xinhua, July 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe' s Cabinet on Friday approved government officials'guidelines for the country's fiscal 2016 budget.

The guidelines are aimed at achieving growth while reining in spending, although the guidelines state that budget requests from ministries need not be capped, which in itself could lead to more spending, some sources close to the matter said Friday.

Ministry and agency requests are likely to top 100 trillion yen (around 807 billion U.S. dollars) for the second straight year, if the guidelines are followed, with the actual budget for fiscal 2016 being drawn up by the end of August, once all the request are in.

Owing to Japan's graying population, social security costs will be the biggest outlay from the budget, and will be allowed to increase from 30.2 trillion yen by an additional 670 billion yen, to cater to the growing needs of the elderly.

Recent areas in which the government expects or has seen growth, such as the employment of females and the utilization of robot technology, will have a 4 trillion yen allocation from which new policies can be implemented, according to the guidelines, although ministries and agencies will be asked to reduce discretionary policy spending requests by 10 percent, including those for public works projects.

According to the guidelines and in another measure aimed at cutting spending, if ministries and agencies lower their requests for expenses by 30 percent from the fiscal 2015 budget, then 30 percent can be added to their priority spending in next year's budget. Endi