Japan approves $142-bn extra stimulus

The upper house of the Japanese parliament yesterday passed an additional stimulus of ¥13.1 trillion ($142 billion) for the fiscal 2012 to fight the country's years-long deflation and propel growth in world's third-largest economy.

The measure, approved by the lower house of parliament two weeks ago, was cleared yesterday by the opposition-dominated upper house.

The extra budget is part of the much larger stimulus package announced by the country's newly-elected Liberal Democratic government led by Shinzo Abe earlier in January to revive growth in the nation's economy which remains mired in recession.

Japanese economy has been hit badly by the global economic slowdown, eurozone debt crisis and a dispute with neighbour China over the sovereignty of few islands in the East China Sea.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) fell 0.1 per cent in the December quarter from the previous quarter, contracting for a third quarter in a row. Economists had anticipated a 0.1 per cent rise.

The extra stimulus will be spent on various measures to revive economic growth including creation of more jobs, improving the country's ageing infrastructure and rebuilding areas struck by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011, besides plugging the public pension financing gaps.