Finance Minister Hikaru Matsunaga said Tuesday he would welcome debate within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on further pump-priming measures, but added the priority is to secure Diet passage of the supplementary and fiscal 1998 budgets.

"It holds meaning for senior officials of the party to offer fresh ideas out of concern (for the current economic situation)," he told a morning news conference. On Saturday, Hiromu Nonaka, LDP senior deputy secretary general, proposed that the government compile a 6 trillion yen auxiliary budget for fiscal 1998, which begins April 1, that would include stimulus steps such as additional public works outlays.

There are incessant calls from within the LDP for the government of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto to put his fiscal reconsolidation efforts on hold so that pump-priming measures might be taken to get the economy back on its feet. These demands have apparently grown stronger with the resignation last week of Hiroshi Mitsuzuka from the post of finance minister in response to the arrest of two ministry bank inspectors on allegations of receiving bribes.

Because Mitsuzuka was finance chief in December, when the Diet enacted the Fiscal Structural Reform Law, which sets strict budgetary constraints up to fiscal 2003, many LDP lawmakers want Hashimoto to change his position regarding fiscal belt-tightening and pump-priming with the appointment of the new finance minister.

With economies in the rest of Asia still battered by the financial and currency crisis, Japan is almost certain to come under increased pressure from other Group of Seven nations, such as the United States, to boost domestic demand and help pull the region out of its quagmire.