国际英语资讯:Japan govt submits reworked extra budget to mitigate virus economic blow_时事

国际英语资讯:Japan govt submits reworked extra budget to mitigate virus economic blow

The one-time cash handout replaces an earlier plan to provide 300,000 yen to households whose income had fallen to a certain level as a result of the virus.

Abe's ruling coalition Komeito party ally had initially floated the idea, and leaned on the prime minister to agree to the plan and bring it to fruition quickly, saying that the blanket 100,000 yen cash handout plan should replace the previous 300,000 yen plan.

The allocation for the cash handout will be financed by issuing more deficit-covering bonds.

The reworked budget is likely to be approved by the lower house of parliament on Wednesday, a rare time for the government to convene being that it is a national holiday, and enacted by the upper house of parliament a day later.

The government is planning for the cash handouts to be given out to each of its residents by the end of May.

The emergency package also allocates funds to the tune of 1 trillion yen to local governments so they can provide fiscal support to businesses complying with local authorities' requests to shutter their operations until the nationwide state of emergency comes to an end on May 6, under the government's current plans.

In addition, the budget has also been compiled to make provisions so that the country's supply of the anti-influenza drug Avigan, shown to have positive effects in treating the symptoms of some COVID-19 patients, can be increased threefold at a cost of 13.9 billion yen.