Cabinet ministers on Monday completed fine-tuning the 82.11 trillion yen draft budget for fiscal 2004, paving the way for its endorsement at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki held a series of meetings with ministers to decide how to allocate the 50 billion yen set aside by the Finance Ministry for reinstating spending plans that were left out of the draft budget proposed by the ministry Friday.

Among the funding that was reinstated was about 1.6 billion yen for the Foreign Ministry's plan to boost the number of security guards at diplomatic establishments abroad from 650 to 1,420 to cope with international terrorism, government officials said.

The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry won 400 million yen to design an Antarctic expedition ship to replace the Shirase, whose 25 years in service are due to expire in 2007, according to the officials.

The Finance Ministry had initially rejected the demand by the education ministry, saying the Shirase should continue operations after repairs. A new ship would take about four years to build.

The decision to grant the money to build a new ship was made "because of the importance of continuing (Antarctic research), as well as efforts made (by the education ministry) to cut costs" for the new ship, Tanigaki said.

The Cabinet is to give its final stamp of approval for the budget plan in a meeting Wednesday morning.

Tanigaki's meetings with the ministers followed director general-level talks Sunday.

Among other spending reinstated Monday was a plan by the National Police Agency to boost the number of officers in rural areas by 3,150.