TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Thursday (Jun 1) that the government would issue special bonds aimed at filling a projected funding gap as it boosts childcare support towards 2030.
Speaking at a government panel meeting, Kishida also said the government would not take on additional financial burdens on the people over its childcare support measures.
“We will frontload child care measures to avoid lagging behind the 2030 target year,” Kishida said. “We will issue ‘child special bonds’ to fill funding shortfalls in the meantime.”
Kishida has made new childcare measures one of the top items on the agenda of his government’s key mid-year economic policy roadmap due out later this month, as Japan struggles with the costs of its ageing population.
But the government is struggling to secure permanent funding sources to pay for a necessary boost to child care support, with Japan – the world’s third-largest economy – already saddled with the industrial world’s heaviest public debt at more than twice the country’s economic output.