Budget requests by Japan's central government offices for the new fiscal year from next April are set to total a record ¥102 trillion ($853 billion), due primarily to social security spending growth in a rapidly aging society, government sources said Tuesday.
The requests for the general-account budget for fiscal 2016 are likely to exceed by some ¥6 trillion the initial budget layout for the current fiscal year through March 31, 2016, which totaled ¥96.34 trillion.
The spending requests will include a record ¥26.54 trillion to service growing government debt, up 11.1 percent from the initial budget in fiscal 2015. Of the amount, ¥15.21 trillion will go to government bond redemption and ¥10.81 trillion to interest payments.