When questioned about funding additional childcare measures to encourage more births, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday he had no intentions to raise Japan’s sales tax rate.
The world’s third-largest economy prioritizes childcare after births dipped below 800,000 for the first time last year.
This month, a prominent member of Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party told Reuters that the government should spend 5 trillion yen ($37.2 billion) on a new plan and consider issuing more debt.
In a roundtable interview with foreign journalists in Tokyo, Kishida, who has committed to treble childcare expenditure, said he had no plans to change the sales tax rate to fund new measures.
