TOKYO (dpa-AFX) – Japan’s government has approved a record defense budget for next year. Military spending is expected to increase by 17 percent to 7.9 trillion yen (around 50.5 billion euros) compared to the current fiscal year, as the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported on Friday. Japan’s plans to further massively upgrade its own armed forces are primarily directed against China’s desire for power and North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program, which Tokyo sees as a threat.
The new budget plan is in line with Japan’s decision a year ago to spend a total of around 43 trillion yen on defense by 2027. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had announced that he would increase the defense budget to two percent of the economic output of the world‘s third largest economy. While Japan’s security doctrine previously focused exclusively on defense, the US ally wants to be able to eliminate enemy missile positions in the future.
Japan’s national budget for the 2024 fiscal year starting April 1, however, is expected to fall for the first time in twelve years. The cabinet approved a draft budget of 112.07 trillion yen (715.3 billion euros) on Friday. Around a third is again earmarked for social spending. The background is the rapid aging of society, which is occurring faster in Japan than in any other industrialized country and is driving up healthcare costs. For the current fiscal year, the state budget had a record volume of 114.38 trillion yen./dg/DP/stw