While saying it is best if such a move is not made, Finance Minister Taro Aso refused to rule out the possibility an extra budget will be needed again next year to support the economy.
"My honest feeling is that it would be best if we don't have to do it, but I won't say there's no possibility," Aso said in an interview with NHK that ran Sunday. "We can't say whether we can avoid it until we see figures from the July-September period."
Extra spending next year will risk expanding the country's public debt, which, at more than twice the size of annual economic output, is the world's heaviest. The government this month unveiled a record budget plan for the fiscal year starting April 1, when a sales tax increase is forecast by analysts to cause the economy to shrink in the second quarter.