The government unveiled an 18 trillion yen economic stimulus package Thursday that it hopes will put the economy on a full recovery track in the second half of fiscal 2000.
The package is also designed to rework the country's economic structure to attune it to the graying population and the age of digital communications.
The Economic Planning Agency says the pump-priming package should push up real gross domestic product by 1.6 percent in the coming year. But EPA Director General Taichi Sakaiya said he has a "hunch" the prop-up effect will be worth at least 2.5 percent, considering factors that cannot be technically calculated.