The Cabinet approved guidelines for fiscal 2001 budget requests Tuesday that will allow policy-related spending to rise slightly above this year's 48.09 trillion yen.
In particular, the guidelines provide for 9.4 trillion yen in public works spending -- the same amount as in this year's expansionary budget.
Policy-related spending in the new budget totals about 48.4 trillion yen at the moment, the Finance Ministry said. But the figure may grow if extra expenditures, such as a special reserve fund, are added during the budget compilation process, which lasts through December.