The Cabinet on Friday approved fiscal 2002 budgetary request guidelines that will cut general expenditures by some 900 billion yen to around 47.8 trillion yen, marking the biggest contraction ever.
The guidelines, compiled the previous day by the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy and endorsed by the governing coalition parties, also mark the first contractional budgetary ceilings since fiscal 1998.
On that occasion, former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto was the leader trying to implement fiscal and structural reforms.