JOIN USThe government can provide special financing in the form of low-interest loans or interest payment subsidies backed by public funds when a natural disaster or other event triggers major economic instability, the Nikkei said.
The newspaper, without citing any sources, said the government was considering allocating several trillion yen and up to ¥10 trillion to the scheme. Funds needed to support the scheme would be set aside in an emergency budget. The authorities have yet to produce an estimate of how much government spending would be needed to help the economy get back on its feet.
Economics Minster Kaoru Yosano told Reuters in an interview earlier this week that the economic damage from the disaster would exceed ¥20 trillion, which was his estimate of the total economic impact of the 1995 earthquake in Kobe. Yosano said government spending was likely to exceed the ¥3.3 trillion Tokyo spent after Kobe, which up to now has been considered the world’s costliest natural disaster.
Recovery fund
On Friday, the Sankei newspaper said that the government planned to issue more than ¥10 trillion in emergency bonds to pay for the reconstruction and that the central bank would fully underwrite the issue. But Yosano and other government officials denied the report, saying no such plan was in place.
The Nikkei said the government was also discussing creating a recovery fund that would provide medium- to long-term lending for firms directly hit by the disaster. However, setting up such a fund would require several changes to the law.