The Liberal Democratic Party's policy affairs chief said Sunday that the consumption tax will not be raised from the current 5 percent in fiscal 2007.

Hidenao Nakagawa, head of the LDP Policy Research Council, made the remark on an NHK television program.

Nakagawa reiterated his view that the economy must come out of deflation and that wasteful spending must be curtailed before the consumption tax can be raised.

"There is no way that this is going to happen in time for the ordinary Diet session of 2007," he said. "The levy cannot be hiked in fiscal 2007."

Appearing on the same program, Yoshihisa Inoue, policy chief of ruling coalition partner New Komeito, agreed, saying that such a timetable would be impossible.

The comments come after the ruling coalition on Thursday unveiled its tax reform outline for fiscal 2006, calling for a 2 trillion yen tax increase while alluding to the possibility of raising the consumption tax in fiscal 2007.

Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki has voiced the intention of submitting relevant bills to hike the consumption tax in the ordinary Diet session of 2007, but Nakagawa's remarks on Sunday effectively reject this plan.

A senior New Komeito member told reporters in Tokyo on Sunday that it would be impossible to revise relevant laws in 2007, and predicted that any consumption tax hike would probably be made around fiscal 2009, when the government's burden for basic pensions is raised from the current one-third to 50 percent.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has repeatedly said he will not raise the consumption tax while in office. His term as LDP president expires next September.