Dec 19 08:30 PM US/EasternTOKYO, Dec. 20 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japan's defense spending will decrease for the seventh consecutive year in fiscal 2009 to a 14-year low, mostly due to falling oil prices and cost savings from the bulk purchase of arms and munitions, the draft state budget showed Saturday.
Under the draft budget proposed by the Finance Ministry, defense spending for the fiscal year starting April will fall 0.1 percent, or 5.6 billion yen, to 4,774.0 billion yen from the initial fiscal 2008 budget.
If the proposed defense spending is finalized after fine-tuning through Wednesday, the size of the initial defense budget will remain below the 4,800 billion yen level for the second straight year.
Under the proposal, the ministry allocated 89.2 billion yen to upgrade 22 F-15 fighter jets for the Air Self-Defense Force, on top of the 26 to be upgraded under Japan's current medium-term defense buildup program, and to acquire components for 38 F-15s.
The outlay has been deemed necessary from the national security standpoint, a ministry official said, adding that the significant cost savings expected from bulk acquisitions also played a significant role in reducing the overall defense spending.
The ministry also allotted 145.1 billion yen to acquire two destroyers for the Maritime Self-Defense Force, and 25.6 billion yen to beef up the capabilities of CH-47 transport helicopters for the Ground Self- Defense Force.
The spending for projects related to the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan will more than triple to 68.9 billion yen from 19.1 billion yen allocated for the current fiscal year.
The allocation increased substantially mostly because Japan will begin financing infrastructure projects in the U.S. territory of Guam to relocate U.S. Marines from Okinawa Prefecture under a plan agreed in 2006.
The ministry will allocate 34.6 billion yen for the Guam projects to cover part of the cost of $2.8 billion Japan has promised to provide for the relocation under the 2006 agreement.
The ministry allocated 9.4 billion yen, up 4.6 billion yen from the initial 2008 budget, mainly to build revetments and tear down barracks around the shore of the U.S. Marine Corps' Camp Schwab in Nago, Okinawa.
But the Finance Ministry's proposal does not include the costs of landfill to build runways there, making the relocation of the helicopter functions at the Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Ginowan difficult to complete by the end of 2014 as agreed between Japan and the United States.
Meanwhile, 800 million yen was allocated for spending related to the impending decommissioning of cluster bombs owned by the GSDF and ASDF following Japan's signing of an international anti-cluster bomb convention this month.
To offset the bombs' decommissioning, the ministry also proposed to earmark 6.0 billion yen to acquire precision-guided munitions for the ASDF and GSDF in the supplementary budget for the current fiscal year to be submitted to the regular session of the Diet in January.
Posts
