Japan govt to unveil extra budget with $312 billion spending to tackle COVID-19 – draft

TOKYO – Japan’s government will unveil on Friday its first extra budget for this fiscal year ending March to ease the pain of the COVID-19 pandemic, with spending worth 36 trillion yen ($312.04 billion), a draft seen by Reuters showed.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s cabinet is expected to approve the budget plan on Friday, including additional government bond issuance totalling 22.1 trillion yen, the draft showed.

($1 = 115.3700 yen)

(Reporting by Takaya Yamaguchi; Writing by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)