Japan Expected to Enact FY 2024 Budget Thurs.

   Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)--Japan's parliament is expected to enact the fiscal 2024 state budget Thursday, following an agreement made Wednesday between ruling and opposition party lawmakers.
   The agreement to put the draft budget to a vote at Budget Committee and plenary meetings at the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, on Thursday was struck between Junichi Ishii, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Diet affairs leader in the chamber, and his counterpart from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Yoshitaka Saito.
   The budget is expected to be enacted with support from the ruling coalition, which holds a comfortable majority in the chamber.
   The budget envisions general-account spending of 112,571.7 billion yen, the second largest ever, including costs to support reconstruction after the powerful earthquake that hit the Noto Peninsula in central Japan on Jan. 1.
   The House of Representatives, the lower chamber, passed the budget March 2. The budget will be enacted before the end of fiscal 2023 on Sunday even without an Upper House vote, given the Lower House's superiority stipulated in the Constitution.

(2024/03/27-15:08)

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