Takaichi Holds 13th Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy Meeting

On September 30, 2026, Prime Minister Takaichi held the 13th Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office. The agenda covered challenges for the new cabinet to address by year-end and macroeconomic management, including focused deliberations on monetary policy and prices.

The prime minister said that, amid rising prices and an economy with interest rates, Japan would strengthen its supply capacity through domestic investment and productivity gains to achieve a “strong economy.”

The government set out a policy of achieving a strong economy while ensuring fiscal sustainability under “responsible and proactive public finances.”

The private-sector council members proposed making the FY2027 budget worthy of the first year of “responsible and proactive public finances” by creating a “‘Strong and Prosperous Japan’ investment framework,” adopting multi-year budget management, and specifying a policy to move away from supplementary budgets. They also called for establishing a continuing cycle covering basic budget policies, the government’s economic outlook, medium- to long-term projections, analysis and verification, and policy review and revision. They further urged more accurate revenue estimates through analysis of actual tax revenue, nominal growth, and corporate earnings.

The private-sector council members cited global inflation caused by surging crude oil prices, growing demand for long-term funds, and an upward trend in long-term interest rates, and said the effects of interest rate fluctuations on households, businesses, and public finances must be carefully assessed. They also proposed sharing views and coordinating between the government and the Bank of Japan, publicizing measures such as mortgage tax relief, lowering the consumption tax rate on food and beverages to address increased burdens on middle- and low-income households, and subsequently introducing support payments to reduce the burden on workers.

The prime minister said that, in meetings through year-end and led by Minister Kiuchi, the government would set out a path for economic and fiscal management, including the FY2027 budget process. It will flesh out the investment framework and related measures, review revenue and spending after assessing tax revenues, and examine the fiscal scale possible while steadily reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio. It will appropriately manage annual government bond issuance through the initial and supplementary budgets, as it did last year, while responding to fiscal needs. She said these measures would be specified in basic budget policies and other documents, and that the operating cycle, including policy review, would be established from the next fiscal year onward.