Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said Monday the government has set a limit of around ¥47.8 trillion for general expenditures in the fiscal 2009 budget.

Swelling social welfare costs due to the nation's aging population helped push the cap slightly higher than the ¥47.3 trillion initially set for this year's budget.

Social security expenditures related to the aging population are forecast to increase to ¥870 billion in fiscal 2009.

Although the government will stick to its plan set in fiscal 2006 to curb increases in public pension, health care and other social security-related costs by ¥220 billion each year, the budget for next year will still rise by ¥650 billion from this year.

The government will meanwhile trim public works spending in fiscal 2009 by 3 percent from the current year.

On the other hand, spending will increase sixfold to ¥300 billion for key policy measures such as addressing the doctor shortage, environmental problems and revitalizing the economy.

The Finance Ministry will ask other ministries to cut an additional 2 percent from spending by abolishing unnecessary projects and eliminating waste in a bid to find money for the special allocations.

Special accounts

Kyodo News

Four reform-minded private-sector members of the government's key economic panel called Monday for streamlining and enhancing the transparency of the nation's 21 special account budgets, the total outlays of which amount to ¥178 trillion.

The members from academia and business on the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy headed by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said in a statement that the government should set policies by the yearend on how to trim wasteful spending associated with the accounts.

The special account budgets are independent of the general account budget, which covers policy-related expenditures, and often have their own specific revenue sources and outlays for specific projects.