Japan's lower house passes trillion-dollar budget

Japan's lower house yesterday passed a record trillion-dollar budget for fiscal 2010, adding to the country's ballooning public debt.

The 92.3 trillion yen ($1 trillion) budget includes new child-care allowances, free public high school tuition and other populist measures promised by the centre-left government in its election agenda.

To finance the budget, the government will issue new bonds worth 44.3 trillion yen.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has pledged to cut 'wasteful' spending and direct more money to individual households.

Earlier in its report, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has warned that the public debt, bloated by repeat bouts of stimulus spending, will soar to double the country's gross domestic product by 2011.

Japan, the world's number two economy, last year emerged from its worst post-war recession, growing in the second and third quarters due to government stimulus measures and rebounding exports, mostly to China.

The budget bill will be sent for deliberation to the upper house, where the ruling coalition has a majority.