Japanese PM Rules Out Extra Budget Despite GDP ContractionJapanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Monday he will not consider implementing a supplementary budget for the current fiscal year to boost the economy, despite the weak data on Japan's gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of this year, Kyodo News reported."We've only just implemented the budget," Koizumi said. The prime minister emphasized the need for structural reform to put the country's economy back on the track to recovery. "A pickup in the economy will be difficult unless we proceed with structural reform. We have to think about things from a longer-term perspective," Koizumi said. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda also downplayed the possibility of compiling a supplementary budget for the current fiscal year. "We believe it is too early to talk about an extra budget. We will think about it while looking at the implementation of the budget," the top government spokesman told a press conference Monday. The remarks of Koizumi and Fukuda came after the Cabinet Office reported earlier in the day that Japan's GDP contracted a real 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2001 from the previous quarter, or an annualized pace of 0.8 percent. |
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