TOKYO: The Diet, Japan's parliament, enacted Thursday a fiscal 2020 supplementary budget to finance economic stimulus measures aimed at reducing the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, including 100,000-yen cash handouts.

"I want to overcome the current difficult situation, which can be called a national crisis, with the entire public," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters following the passage of the budget. "I'm resolved to take all possible means for that."

The 25,691.4-billion-yen budget passed the House of Councilors, the upper chamber, with support chiefly from the ruling parties and major opposition parties. The budget cleared the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, on Wednesday.

The budget includes 12,880.3 billion yen for the uniform cash handout program and 2,317.6 billion yen for a scheme to provide up to 2 million yen to small businesses hit by sales plunges due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Although the Lower House approved the budget unanimously, it was opposed at the Upper House by small opposition party Reiwa Shinsengumi, which says that the size of the budget is too small.

Given that the crisis is unlikely to end anytime soon, the government and the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling camp see the need for additional measures, informed sources said.

With the compilation of a second fiscal 2020 supplementary budget in mind, the government and the ruling bloc started full-fledged work to prepare more measures, such as relief to businesses struggling to pay rents, the sources said.

JIJI Press