Tokyo, (Samajweekly) The Japanese government’s debt has increased a record 101.92 trillion yen ($940 billion) in fiscal year 2020 to reach a record of 1,216.46 trillion yen ($1.12 trillion), the Finance Ministry said.
The figure showed the biggest annual increase following the fiscal measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry as saying on Monday.
The number logged a record high for the fifth consecutive year.
The outstanding balance as of March 31 showed that debt per capita amounted to 9.70 million yen on the basis of the estimated population of 125.41 million on April 1.
The increase of debt pushed the world’s third-largest economy further away from fiscal restoration, with debt twice the size of the country’s gross domestic product.
The previous record annual debt increase was 78.40 trillion yen in fiscal 2004.
As the pandemic began to spread across Japan in spring last year, the government has since been implementing fiscal measures on a large scale to finance the economy and the medical system, enacting three extra budgets worth about 73 trillion yen in total for fiscal 2020.
