Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should postpone the consumption tax increase scheduled for October or face the failure of Abenomics, his six-year economic revival program, according to one of the architects of that program.
"Abenomics will fail for real if the tax is raised now," Etsuro Honda, a former economic adviser to Abe, said during an interview last week.
Honda has convinced Abe to postpone the tax increase twice before and said he is determined to do so again. He said the rise should be put on hold until the Bank of Japan's 2 percent inflation target is reached. Raising the tax now would make it impossible to achieve that target — a key part of efforts to achieve sustainable growth, he said.