Japan expects to achieve its primary budget balance in the year beginning in April 2025, finally achieving its long-cherished goal of a healthy budget after more than a decade of delay.
The primary balance, the difference between government revenues and expenditures excluding net interest payments on government debt, is expected to be around ¥800 billion ($5.2 billion), or about 0.1% of gross domestic product, in fiscal 2025, according to the Cabinet Office’s mid-to-long-term outlook report on Monday. That’s an improvement from the ¥1.1 trillion deficit, or minus 0.4% of GDP, forecast in January and would be the first surplus since the government set the target in 2002.
The government initially wanted to achieve the target in budget year 2011, but postponed this for more than ten years.
