Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Saturday he aims to get a fiscal 2023 supplementary budget for funding a new economic package passed during an extraordinary parliamentary session, to be convened on Oct. 20.
As the extra budget is expected to be passed by parliament in late November at the earliest, and given his government's diplomatic and domestic policy schedules for December, Kishida has little room left to call a snap election by the year-end.
There had been speculation that Kishida would dissolve the House of Representatives for a snap election early in the upcoming session before the budget passed, as he had said he intended to submit it to the session while not providing a timescale for its passage.
Kishida said during a meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, that his government is aiming to finalize the economic package, designed to ease the negative impact of rising prices, and the draft supplementary budget by the end of this month.
"Many people are struggling with rising prices. Now is the time to return the rewards of economic growth to the public," Kishida said.
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