Cabinet Decision on Bill to Create Funds for Strengthening Defense Capability to Securing Financial Resources for Defense Expenditure

At a cabinet meeting on the 3rd, the government approved a bill that includes the creation of a "defense enhancement fund" that accumulates non-tax income such as the sale of state-owned assets in order to secure financial resources for increased defense spending.

Of the financial resources for the increase in defense spending, the government will

cover ◇1/4 from tax increases,

◇3/4 from

▽ expenditure reform,

▽ utilization of annual settlement surplus

, and

▽ non-tax income And

so on.

In order to be able to utilize this non-tax revenue over multiple years, the government will pass a bill at a cabinet meeting on the morning of the 3rd, which includes the establishment of a new "defense enhancement fund" in the general account. Decided.

Non- tax income includes

sales of assets owned by the government and money transferred

from special accounts

. Allows you to spend when necessary.

In the budget proposal for the new fiscal year, 3.3806 trillion yen is to be transferred to the defense enhancement fund.

Regarding this bill, the government initially included provisions such as ``We will strive to continue the reform of expenditures in order to secure financial resources.'' It gives the impression that it will be used for defense spending and will not be involved in other policies." In the end, it was deleted.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Matsuno ``Carefully explain to the public through bill deliberations''

At a press conference in the afternoon, Chief Cabinet Secretary Matsuno said, "With Japan's security environment becoming increasingly severe, the drastic strengthening of our defense capabilities is an urgent task to protect the lives and peaceful livelihoods of our people. We have accumulated the details of the necessary defense capabilities in the 2010-2012 2012-2011 meeting, and have put them into concrete form as a new defense build-up plan.”

After that, he said, "I would like to carefully explain the necessary budget and efforts to secure financial resources to support it through bill deliberations in the Diet so that the public can understand it."