Japan unveils third $ 708 billion stimulus package

Since the start of the pandemic, Japan has already deployed $ 3 trillion, or 40% of its GDP, to get out of the recession and now dares the big reforms that have been promised many times.

AP - Koji Sasahara

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

Despite colossal public debt, Tokyo unveils a third stimulus package to $ 708 billion since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic.

This plan includes spending to maintain employment and support businesses.

But the pandemic is also pushing the new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to initiate a change of strategy, by investing in the digitization and decarbonization of the economy through measures intended to promote new sources of growth for the third largest economy in the world.

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With our correspondent in Tokyo

,

Japan is seeking to cure the coronavirus which does not strike it much less than elsewhere in the world without suffocating its economy.

Better yet, its new

is using the pandemic to project his administration and businesses into the 21st century.

This third stimulus plan should accelerate the IT transformation of a country where the use of fax and paper remains massive, and where the

the ancestral seal, is still required to sign documents.

The use of electronic signatures should mark a small cultural revolution.

A change in economic strategy therefore begins with the pandemic.

Ensure the transition to renewable energies 

In a country where the production of electricity is still 80% with fossil resources since the nuclear accident in Fukushima.

The recovery plan must ensure the transition to renewable energies or other solutions such as hydrogen.

The government wants to convert its drivers to electric vehicles by 2035.

Since the start of the pandemic, Japan has already deployed $ 3 trillion, or 40% of its GDP, to

and now dares the big reforms promised many times.

The proof: prohibitive electricity bills are falling.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga also attacks monopolies that agree on low prices and reduce the purchasing power of consumers.

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• Japan

• Economy

• Coronavirus

• Yoshihide Suga

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