Japanese firms overwhelmingly want the government to draw up an extra budget of ¥10 trillion or more to ease the pain caused by COVID-19, a Reuters poll showed, indicating support for new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's additional stimulus plans.
The monthly Corporate Survey results come as Kishida, who took over from Yoshihide Suga as premier last week, ordered his cabinet to compile an economic package targeting households and businesses hit hard by the pandemic.
Kishida has pledged to draw up economic measures worth "tens of trillions of yen" to revive the world's third-largest economy, which is already saddled with the industrial world's heaviest debt load. Japan's debt is more than twice the size of its annual economic output.