Japan expects to hit its primary balance goal in the year starting April 2025, finally achieving the long-standing goal for fiscal health after more than a decade of delays.
The primary balance, the difference between government revenue and expenditure excluding net interest payments on public debt, is projected to be around ¥800 billion ($5.2 billion), or about 0.1% of gross domestic product in fiscal year 2025, according to the Cabinet Office’s mid- to long-term outlook report Monday. This marks an improvement from the ¥1.1 trillion deficit, or minus 0.4% of GDP predicted, in January, and would be the first surplus since the government set the target in 2002.
The government initially aimed to achieve the goal in fiscal year 2011 but kept pushing it back for over a decade.
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