Ballooning debt-servicing costs will raise next year's general account budget to ¥86.13 trillion on a request basis, a 3.7 percent rise from this year, Finance Ministry officials said Thursday.
The total size of this year's requests by ministries and agencies is second only to fiscal 2004, when the sum came to ¥86.45 trillion.
Last year, they asked for ¥85.71 trillion for this year's budget, although this was eventually trimmed to ¥83.06 trillion.