FILE PHOTO – Japanese Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso looks on during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s joint news announcement in Abe’s official residence in Tokyo, Japan November 13, 2018. REUTERS/Issei Kato
November 20, 2018
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday he would compile a second extra budget to respond to urgent needs including disaster relief in the current fiscal year, following instructions from the prime minister.
Aso also told reporters after a cabinet meeting that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told his cabinet to take all possible steps to ease the pain from a planned sales tax hike next year when compiling the fiscal 2019/20 annual budget.
“Prime Minister Abe told us to take all possible steps to support the economy and avoid cooling domestic consumption,” Aso said.
(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto, editing by Eric Meijer)
