Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida looks at reporters as they raise hands for questions during a news conference at his office building in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced a stimulus package worth more than $100 billion on Thursday as he tries to ease the pressure from inflation and rescue his premiership with his poll ratings at a record low.

Voters in the world’s third-largest economy have been reeling from rising prices since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, pushing up energy costs and putting pressure on the government.

“We are seeing that the tide is turning from the vicious cycle of deflation — symbolised by low prices, low wages and low growth,” Mr. Kishida told a meeting where he revealed the size of the package would be around 17 trillion yen ($113.2 billion).

“For the first time in 30 years, we are facing a great opportunity to move to a new economic stage,” he added.

“On the other hand, in the current situation where the rise in wages is not catching up with the rise in prices, it is necessary to support people’s disposable income temporarily so as to avoid moving back to deflation,” he said.

The plan involves income and residential tax reductions of 40,000 yen per person, and 70,000 yen cash handouts to low-income households, Mr. Kishida told reporters.

He also pledged to “lead the way (next year) in urging the business community to raise wages to a level higher than this year”.

The package was approved by the cabinet on Thursday, and according to public broadcaster NHK, the government plans to submit a draft of the supplementary budget to parliament this month.

The programme will be worth 37.4 trillion yen taking into account private sector spending, local media reported.

There will be funds to promote investment in high-tech areas including the chip and electric vehicle industries.

The package will likely add to Japan’s debt mountain, which stood at 261 percent of gross domestic product in 2022, one of the world’s highest.

The government has already injected hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy over the past three years since the Covid-19 pandemic.

GDP has been slowly picking up speed, with growth of 1.2 percent in April-June, but it is expected to have contracted since.

Japan was for decades beset by deflation but like other economies around the world, prices have risen since the Ukraine war began in February 2022.

A weaker yen, meanwhile, while welcome news to Japanese exporters, makes imports pricier and stokes inflation for households.

Unlike other major central banks, the Bank of Japan refused to tighten monetary policy and instead continues to keep interest rates below zero and bond yields ultra-low in a bid to boost economic growth.

That has come even as inflation continues to rise — the core consumer price index is at a three-decade high — with officials insisting the increase is temporary despite ramping up its forecasts for this year and next.

But its stance has added to pressure on the yen, one of the world’s worst-performing major currencies in 2023.

Poll ratings for Mr. Kishida are at their lowest levels since he took office two years ago, in part because of voter unease over inflation.

Mr. Kishida, 66, can govern until 2025 but there has been speculation that he might call a snap election ahead of a likely tough internal leadership vote in his ruling Democratic Party (LDP) next year.

He told reporters on Thursday he “is committed to tackling issues that cannot be postponed” and “is not thinking about anything else”.

Hideo Kumano, chief economist of Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, said he was “sceptical” whether the package will help either the economy or the prime minister.

Mr. Kishida has oscillated between stressing fiscal discipline and wanting to boost spending, he told AFP.

“Those who had opposed any tax hike to finance government policy hadn’t supported Mr. Kishida. Now, those who had opposed distributing money widely will leave him,” the analyst told AFP.

Voters need to be convinced.

“Everyday products have become more expensive so I have no choice but to look for cheaper items,” Tokyo resident Masaharu Kashima told AFP.

“I’ve cut my purchases in half,” the 74-year-old said.

“I don’t think (the stimulus) is going to change much… They also already gave us 100,000 yen (during Covid) but it didn’t change anything.”

The logo of of Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly known as Unification Church, is seen on the wall of the the building housing its headquarters in Tokyo, on Oct. 12, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Japanese government said Thursday it was seeking to strip official recognition from the Unification Church, the influential sect under intense scrutiny since the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last year ordered a probe into the church after it emerged that Abe’s alleged killer was motivated by resentment against the group.

It has been accused of pressuring its followers into making hefty donations and blamed for child neglect among its members.

If granted, the court dissolution order sought by the government would see the church lose its tax-exempt status, among other legal privileges, but still be allowed to continue its religious practices.

“In view of the extensive damage caused, we find that it falls under the grounds for ordering dissolution as stated in the religious corporations law,” Education Minister Masahito Moriyama told reporters after a panel of experts unanimously agreed with the decision.

The church “forced a number of people to contribute donations and buy items… in a way that restricted their free decision-making and sabotaged their sound judgement”, he added.

The minister said the request would be filed to the Tokyo District Court as early as Friday, once “preparations are complete”.

Mr. Kishida said separately that the government’s plan was based on facts and a careful review of the matter.

“Based on the law and in accordance with the objective facts, careful work was done and the Minister of Education made the decision,” he told reporters at his office.

Abe was gunned down in broad daylight last year while giving a campaign speech in the western Nara region.

The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, is said to have resented the sect over large donations his mother made that bankrupted his family.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Investigations after Abe’s death revealed close ties between the church and many conservative ruling lawmakers in Japan.

Four of Mr. Kishida’s ministers have since stepped down over allegations of financial irregularities or links to the church.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida poses with his new cabinet at his official residence in Tokyo, Japan, September 13, 2023.
| Photo Credit: VIA REUTERS

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shuffled his Cabinet and key party posts on Wednesday to strengthen his position before a key party leadership vote next year, bringing in a new Defence Minister and the country’s first female Foreign Minister since 2002.

Mr. Kishida appointed five women to the 19-member Cabinet, part of his attempt to buoy sagging support ratings for his previous male-dominated Cabinet, which had only two women. The five females match the number in two earlier Japanese Cabinets — in 2014 and 2001.

One of the five, former Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa, who approved the hangings in 2018 of a cult leader and six aides for a deadly 1995 subway nerve gas attack, was appointed Foreign Minister, replacing Yoshimasa Hayashi.

Minoru Kihara, who has been serving on the governing Liberal Democratic Party’s national security committee, was selected Defence Minister, replacing Yasukazu Hamada.

Mr. Kishida said the new Cabinet reflects his determination to adapt to recent rapid economic, security and technological changes and turn those into national strengths.

“There is a huge flow of change in front of us,” Mr. Kishida said at a news conference after the Cabinet’s swearing-in ceremony. “We cannot stand still just watching all these changes.”

Mr. Kishida said three pillars of his policy goals are an end to deflation, stronger diplomacy and security, and measures to address Japan’s rapid aging and declining population.

It is the second Cabinet shuffle since Mr. Kishida took office in October 2021, when he promised a fairer distribution of economic growth, measures to tackle Japan’s declining population and a stronger national defence. Russia’s war in Ukraine, rising energy prices and Japan’s soaring defence costs have created challenges in his tenure, keeping his support ratings at low levels.

Mr. Kishida’s three-year term as the conservative LDP’s president expires in September 2024, when he is expected to seek a second term. His faction in the party is the fourth largest, so he must stay on good terms with the others to maintain his position.

He distributed Cabinet posts to reflect that balance of power, with nearly half of the positions going to the two largest factions associated with assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and former leader Taro Aso.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki, Digital Reform Minister Taro Kono and Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi were among six ministers who stayed.

The LDP supports traditional family values and gender roles, and the low number of female politicians in leadership positions is often criticized by women’s rights groups as democracy without women.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel welcomed the new Cabinet. “These appointments will bring a level of freshness, a level of energy and purposefulness in that endeavor that started two years ago” as Japan and the United States continue to elevate their security ties, Emanuel said in a telephone interview.

Opposition leaders expressed disappointment in the new Cabinet. “We recognize the increase of female ministers to five, but otherwise, (the new Cabinet) conveys no sense of what it actually wants to achieve,” said Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan executive Katsuya Okada.

Mr. Kishida told reporters Wednesday that he plans to compile a new economic package by the end of October to deal with rising gasoline and food prices.

Two people who lost posts in the shakeup had been touched by recent scandals.

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tetsuro Nomura was reprimanded by Kishida and apologized after calling treated radioactive wastewater being released from the Fukushima nuclear power plant “contaminated,” a term China uses to characterize the water as unsafe. And magazine reports have alleged that Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara influenced a police investigation of his wife over her ex-husband’s suspicious death.

Mr. Kishida last shuffled his Cabinet a year ago after Abe’s assassination revealed ties between senior governing party members and the Unification Church, a South Korea-based conservative religious group.

New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday held a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Miniser Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of G20 summit being hosted under India’s presidency this year.

The meeting was held at the G20 summit venue, Bharat Mandapam in Pragati Maidan.

Fumio Kishida arrived in the national capital yesterday to attend the G20 Leaders’ Summit.

At the G20 summit in India, Fumio Kishida plans to show Japan’s stance of proactively contributing to various global issues, based on the results of the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May, Japanese media reported.

“The agenda in India will include global food security, which has been affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as development, digital transformation and other international issues,” according to NHK.

Earlier this May, PM Modi had met with his Japanese counterpart in Hiroshima at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima.

The cooperation between India and Japan continues to deepen over time as the two nations share historical linkages with exchanges between the two countries being traced to the 6th century when Buddhism was introduced in Japan.

As both nations deal with the challenges provided by an aggressive China in the Asian region, India’s political ties to Japan have grown significantly over the past few decades.

In the lead-up to both the G20 and G7 summits, the visit of Japanese PM Fumio Kishida to India in March bolstered further commitment between the two countries to work together for the realisation of a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific”.

India and Japan have already developed various frameworks of security partnership including a ‘2+2’ Dialogue involving Foreign and Defence ministers. The two countries regularly participate in joint military exercises such as the Malabar Exercise and have various partnership agreements ranging from defence equipment trade to military logistics.

Japan is India’s 13th-largest trading partner, whereas India is Japan’s 18th-largest. With Japan’s private sector investment in India steadily increasing, it is among the top five foreign investors in India.

India and Japan’s joint efforts to foster a free, open, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region demonstrate the strength and potential of their ever-strengthening relationship.

This is the first time that the G20 Summit is taking place under India’s presidency. Formed in 1999, the G20 was setup to maintain global financial stability by incorporating middle-income countries.

India assumed the G20 presidency on December 1 last year and about 200 meetings related to G20 were organized in 60 cities across the country. The 18th G20 Summit in New Delhi will be a culmination of all the G20 processes and meetings held throughout the year among ministers, senior officials, and civil societies.

A G20 Leaders’ declaration will be adopted at the conclusion of the G20 Summit, stating Leaders’ commitment towards the priorities discussed and agreed upon during the respective ministerial and working group meetings. The next G20 presidency is going to be taken over by Brazil in 2024, followed by South Africa in 2025.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

An aerial photo of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. File
| Photo Credit: AP

“The first phase of releasing treated waste water from Fukushima that has angered China will end on September 11 as planned,” the stricken Japanese nuclear plant’s operator said.

“TEPCO added that levels of radioactive tritium in tested seawater samples near the plant in north-east Japan were within safe limits,” according to a statement on September 7.

Why is Japan planning to flush Fukushima wastewater into the ocean?

Japan began on August 24 discharging into the Pacific some of the 1.34 million tonnes of waste water that has collected since a tsunami crippled the facility in 2011.

Japan insists that the discharge is safe, a view backed by the UN atomic agency, but China banned all seafood imports from its neighbour, accusing it of treating the sea like a “sewer”.

Announcing the end of the first phase of releasing 7,800 tonnes of the water on September 11, TEPCO gave no date for the start of the second discharge.

“After completion of the first discharge, we will conduct an inspection of (the) entire … water dilution/discharge facility and review the operational records from the first discharge,” it said.

It added that a “leak alarm” sounded on Wednesday in a waste water transfer line, but that no leak was detected. Staff “quickly conducted a field inspection in accordance with safety check procedures and it was confirmed that there was no leak of… treated water,” the statement said.

The water, equivalent to 540 Olympic pools’ worth, has been used to cool the three reactors that went into meltdown in 2011, in one of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophes.

Japan says that all radioactive elements have been filtered out except tritium, levels of which are well within safe limits and below that released by nuclear plants in their normal operations around the world.

How Japan plans to release Fukushima water into the ocean

The release, which is expected to take decades to complete, is aimed at making space to begin removing the highly dangerous radioactive fuel and rubble from the wrecked reactors.

Last week Prime Minister Fumio Kishida publicly ate fish from Fukushima in an effort to reassure consumers, as did the U.S. Ambassador to Japan in a show of support.

The government on Monday also beefed up an aid package for the fishing sector following the seafood import ban by China, Japan’s biggest export market for fish.

In this photo provided by Cabinet Public Affairs Office, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida eats the seafood from Fukushima prefecture at lunch at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo, Japan, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Japan’s prime minister ate what he called “safe and delicious” fish from Fukushima on Wednesday, days after wastewater was released from the area’s crippled nuclear plant into the Pacific.

A video clip showing Fumio Kishida eating Fukushima fish, published on social media by his office, comes after China banned all seafood imports from its neighbour following the discharge that began on August 24.

“This is very good,” Mr. Kishida said as he chewed on a slice of flounder sashimi, calling on viewers to enjoy “safe and delicious” Japanese seafood to support the northeastern region.

The clip, overlaid by cheery music, showed the conservative leader joined by three other ministers at his office for sashimi, boiled pork, fruits, rice and vegetables from the Fukushima region.

It was designed to promote products from the area 12 years after Fukushima was devastated by a huge earthquake and tsunami that triggered one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

Even before the wastewater release, many in Japan’s fishing industry were worried about what it would do to the reputation of the country’s seafood domestically and abroad.

The discharge, equivalent to more than 500 Olympic swimming pools, is expected to take decades and will allow engineers to start removing highly dangerous radioactive fuel from three wrecked reactors.

Bricks and eggs have been thrown at Japanese schools and consulates in China and Tokyo has advised its nationals there to keep a low profile. Businesses in Japan have also been swamped with nuisance calls from Chinese numbers.

Mr. Kishida was expected to visit Tokyo’s main Toyosu fish market on Thursday to sample more Fukushima fish.

Japan has demanded that China – its biggest market for fish – drop its ban on seafood imports while warning it will complain to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Mr. Kishida’s government is also reportedly planning a package of financial aid for the fishing industry while also helping it find new export markets.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reiterated on Wednesday that the water being released was safe according to the UN watchdog.

In a show of support for Japan, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, was due to visit the Fukushima area on Thursday and eat locally caught seafood.