Japan's defense budget for the new fiscal year is expected to exceed $70 billion for the first time

Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted sources as saying that the Japanese defense Ministry has basically finalized the 2025 annual budget request gathered at the end of August, and it is expected that the defense budget for the new fiscal year will exceed 8 trillion yen for the first time, hitting a new high.

In order to better protect remote islands, the new defense budget will account for the purchase of attack drones to expel invading enemies, and plans to formally deploy them in the Self-Defense forces.

In order to thoroughly strengthen its defense capabilities, the Japanese government has proposed that the five-year defense expenditure from 2023 to 2027 will total about 43 trillion yen.

Japan's defense budget is about 5.4 trillion yen in 2022, and then rises rapidly every year, reaching 6.8 trillion yen in 2023 and more than 7.9 trillion yen in 2024.

However, given that there is still a large amount of unspent budget in 2023, Japan will postpone the decision to start raising part of the tax increase, and it is expected that the rationality of the government's tax increase may be discussed again.