TOKYO: The Japanese cabinet on Friday approved a four trillion yen (49 billion dollar) special budget for the reconstruction of areas devastated by last month's earthquake and tsunami, officials said.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan's cabinet plans to submit the budget to parliament on April 28, aiming to pass it by May 2 with the expected support of the opposition, which controls the upper house.
It was the first extra budget approved by the government since the disaster hit northeastern Japan on March 11, leaving more than 27,000 people dead or missing as well as crippling nuclear power reactors.
The budget would cover the costs of restoration work such as clearing massive rubble and building temporary housing for victims of the disaster.
Some 1.20 trillion yen, the biggest portion of the budget, would be spent on public works projects, such as the restoration of roads, ports and farmland.
The budget will also cover the repair of damaged schools and social welfare facilities, while financially supporting local governments as well as small businesses in the region.
Japan has said the cost of rebuilding could be as much as 25 trillion yen.
The government will not issue fresh bonds to finance the budget but plans to divert some funds originally aimed at supporting the country's pension programme and child allowances and slash plans to cancel highway tolls.
Kan, under pressure to reduce the nation's huge debt, plans to draw another extra budget as early as June for disaster reconstruction, raising total costs to 10 trillion yen, local media said.
Japan has the industrialised world's biggest debt, at around 200 percent of
GDP, after years of pump-priming measures by governments trying in vain to arrest the economy's long decline.
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