The House of Representatives on Tuesday evening approved a third supplementary budget for fiscal 1998 and immediately sent it to the House of Councilors for enactment.
The 5.677 trillion yen budget includes funds for the latest economic stimulus package, worth some 24 trillion yen.
It cleared the Lower House Budget Committee by a majority vote from the Liberal Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and New Komeito; it was approved at a plenary session of the Lower House later in the evening.
The Lower House also was to pass a bill to freeze the belt-tightening Fiscal Structural Reform Law, a move that will pave the way for increased spending to shore up the ailing economy.
The extra budget and the bill on the fiscal austerity law are expected to be enacted into law later this week after being passed by the House of Councilors.
The supplementary budget, to be funded by issuing 12.33 trillion yen in government bonds, is primarily intended to ease the credit squeeze, develop new social infrastructure and return economic crisis-stricken Asian economies back to health.
Some 2.142 trillion yen will be appropriated for measures to soften the credit crunch, under which Japanese banks have either rushed to call in old loans to corporate borrowers or refused to extend new ones.