State tax revenues for fiscal 1998 totaled 49.42 trillion yen, falling 747.1 billion yen short of estimates and slipping below 50 trillion yen for the first time in 11 years, the Finance Ministry said Friday.
But overall, the government managed to post a 949.4 billion yen surplus for the year that ended March 31, partly because of contributions from the Bank of Japan, which earned a handsome profit from the yen's depreciation.
As a result, the government will probably be able to finance a supplementary budget without issuing new bonds, Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa told the day's regular news conference.