Japan must stick to its target of balancing the budget by 2011, Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said, rejecting a call by a lawmaker in the ruling coalition to postpone the target.
"We must firmly maintain the goal," Nukaga said at a press conference Friday. "It's important for us to stick to the goal in terms of implications for the global economy, as well as domestic financial markets."
Kazuo Kitagawa, secretary general of the ruling coalition's New Komeito, said this week that Japan should delay attempts to eliminate the deficit by 2011. The ruling coalition's Liberal Democratic Party is under pressure to provide more financial support to households and rural areas since the opposition bloc gained control of the Upper House in a July election.