Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi signaled her determination to ramp up the active use of fiscal policy to power economic growth by dropping an annual budget-balancing goal that favors financial orthodoxy.
Speaking in the lower house of parliament Friday, Takaichi said the government’s long-held target of achieving a primary balance surplus will no longer be reviewed on a single-year basis. The primary balance refers to the difference between government spending and revenue after factoring out debt-servicing.