apan unveiled a 2 trillion yen, or $18 billion, stimulus package Friday, including assistance to small businesses and other pump-priming measures to shore up its flagging economy hit by soaring energy and material prices.
The new measures include discounts on expressway tolls, assistance to farms and help for part-time workers to find better jobs, according to the Cabinet Office. They also funding earmarked for better medical care, ecological technology, housing loans and education, it said.
Growth in the world's No. 2 economy has come to a virtual halt against the backdrop of higher energy and materials prices, slowing exports and the global credit crunch. Second-quarter gross domestic product, which contracted at a 2.4 percent annual pace, suggests that the country teeters on the brink of recession.
But many economists see the stimulus package as a publicity stunt by the unpopular Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to revive approval ratings for his Cabinet. Public discontent against Fukuda has been growing following a series of scandals, including lost pension records, bribery in the military and dubious spending by the agriculture minister.
In releasing its economic stimulus plan, the government said that the Japanese economy had been sorely hurt by the global rise in oil and food prices as well as by U.S. credit problems, raising serious concerns that Japanese consumer spending will decline further and drag down people's living standards.
8/28/2008 7:04 AM
By JOE McDONALD
AP Business Writer
BEIJING
apan unveiled a 2 trillion yen, or $18 billion, stimulus package Friday, including assistance to small businesses and other pump-priming measures to shore up its flagging economy hit by soaring energy and material prices.
