This story is concerned with money, vast sums of it, amounts quite beyond most people's imagination. The operative word is chō (兆, trillion).
Niju ten ni chō en (20.2兆円, ¥20.2 trillion) — that's the size of the kinkyū keizai taisaku (緊急経済対策, emergency economic stimulus package) approved by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet last month.
The central government's share of that is to be jū ten san chō en (10.3兆円, ¥10.3 trillion), with jichitai (自治体, prefectural and municipal governments) shouldering most of the rest. Jū-san ten ichi chō en (13.1兆円, ¥13.1 trillion) is what the hosei yosan-an (補正予算案, supplementary budget proposal) approved by the Abe naikaku (安倍内閣, Abe cabinet) amounts to. If, as expected, it passes the Diet this month, it will be Japan's second biggest 補正予算 ever, the largest having been issued under former Prime Minister Taro Aso following the 2008 Lehman Shock.
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