Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, has decided to risk his popularity – and, some say, the country’s nascent economic recovery – by pressing ahead with a rare increase in the politically sensitive sales tax.
The prime minister and core members of his cabinet have agreed in principle to allow Japan’s value added consumption tax to rise from 5 to 8 per cent next April, according to people close to the matter, but to soften the immediate impact on the economy with stimulus spending of as much as Y5tn.
They hope the compromise will balance two crucial but competing objectives: addressing Japan’s large and growing public debt and keeping its Abenomics-fuelled recovery on course.