Japan: Part of Economic Stimulus Includes Promotion of Solar Power Generation
April 6th, 2009I was reading through this piece and it was blah, blah, blah and then promotion of solar power generation jumped out. I wasn’t expecting to see that.
If anyone in knows what this means, with more precision that we see here, let us know.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Japan will craft what would be its largest supplementary budget ever, comprising Y10 trillion or more of fresh government spending to fight the nation’s recession, the finance minister said Monday.
Finance and Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano said he had received an order from Prime Minister Taro Aso in a meeting held earlier in the day to make an extra budget worth “2% or more” of Japan’s gross domestic product to fund the government’s planned new stimulus package.
The 2% amounts to Y10.152 trillion based on the value of Japan’s total output of goods and services in 2008, not adjusted for inflation, Cabinet Office data show. The largest supplementary budget to date, as gauged by actual expenditure included, is the third one made in fiscal 1998 that had disbursements worth Y8.5 trillion, according to a finance ministry official.
“We had an instruction from the prime minister that from the perspective of Japan’s deeper contraction compared with other major advanced economies, as well as from the perspective of international cooperation, we should consider economic steps with ‘mamizu’ worth 2% or more of GDP” when devising the budget, Yosano said.
“Mamizu,” or pure water in Japanese, generally refers to actual spending and tax cuts.
While well-expected, Aso’s decision to put together a record extra budget despite the nation’s tattered fiscal health shows how determined the government is to turn around Japan’s ailing economy. It also signals Aso’s hope to lift his low public approval ratings of below 30% ahead of general elections that must be held later this year.
Aso wants the government to funnel new money mainly to five areas, Yosano said. Those are: safety nets for temporary workers, support for companies raising funds, the promotion of solar power generation, improvements to health services and medical care, and aid for local governments to spur regional economies.
Aso, according to Yosano, also laid out three principles for government staff to abide by: measures should be “targeted,” “timely,” and “temporary.”
ok, non-soundbite information on this is pretty sketchy still (as you might have guessed).
but, in the last while there seem to have been moves to increase the subsidies available for homeowners and residential builders to install photovoltaic systems. and the new budget looks likely to target government buildings for installation.
the slightly wider context for this is that Japanese consumer electonics companies have seen sales fall through the floor, while companies selling alternative energy technologies and power saving technologies are doing quite well. there seems to be a big stampede on right now to re-tool for such production…
Very interesting, indeed.
a bit (but not a lot) more information today…
from the Guardian’s write-up:
more background here:
http://uk.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=UKTRE5375F820090408
i have to say that it looks pretty uninspiring, especially in light of recent efforts in this area. rather than just PV, they need to subsidise solar water heating systems and heat exchange systems to offset high summer air conditioner use, which sets the peak for electricity demand.