A member of a key panel advising Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the central bank isn’t likely to raise its benchmark rate before March, as authorities will need to confirm that large-scale extra spending is boosting domestic demand.
“The starting point is fiscal policy,” Goushi Kataoka, a member of Takaichi’s economic growth strategy panel, said in an interview with Bloomberg Tuesday. He estimated that a supplementary budget of around ¥20 trillion ($129 billion) will be necessary this fiscal year, far bigger than the ¥13.9 trillion package compiled a year ago by Takaichi’s predecessor.