TOKYO: Japan is likely to miss its interim target for fiscal reconstruction due chiefly to sluggish tax revenue growth and the postponement of a consumption tax increase, according to a key government macroeconomic policy panel.
Private sector members of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy called on the government to promote structural reform intensively over the next three years toward fiscal reconstruction.
At a meeting Thursday, the council revealed the projection in its interim assessment on progress of the government’s fiscal reconstruction program for fiscal 2016-2020 that was compiled in 2015.
Based mainly on the assessment, the government plans to draw up a new program this summer that will include a timeline of when a primary budget surplus can be achieved.
The current program calls for reducing the government’s primary budget deficit in fiscal 2018, which begins April 1, to 1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in order to achieve a primary budget surplus in fiscal 2020.
