TOKYO, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) — The Japanese government said on Tuesday that it will allocate an additional 989.15 billion yen (about 6.73 billion U.S. dollars) from its fiscal 2024 reserve fund to cover energy subsidies designed to ease the burden on households.
The latest decision, largely depleting this fiscal year’s reserve fund set aside to fight inflation, brings the total state expenses for measures to help cushion the impact of high prices on households to more than 11 trillion yen over the past three years.
The additional spending is intended to ease the pain of rising electricity, city gas and gasoline prices in the fall when people still tend to use air conditioning often and travel more by car.
As household energy costs have sharply risen worldwide, the Japanese government launched a subsidy program for gasoline in 2022, followed by similar measures for electricity and gas the following year.
In June, the government decided to reinstate its subsidy program for electricity and gas bills between August and October due to the severe summer heat after terminating it in May.
The government will also maintain its subsidies to oil wholesalers to limit the rise in retail gasoline prices until the end of this year.
