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TOKYO -Japan is aiming to earn 5 trillion yen ($34 billion) or more from tourists over the next financial year, a draft economic package seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday, as policymakers hope to use the weak yen to attract foreign visitors.
Japan has eased COVID-19 border control requirements this month, a key step in fostering a recovery in the country’s tourism sector, which is eager to take advantage of the yen’s slide to a 32-year low.
Japanese policymakers have remained coy about the likely size of the planned stimulus package, although some lawmakers have floated ball-park figures of 30 trillion yen or more.
Japan must strike a delicate balance between spending its way out of the COVID-induced doldrums in the near term while reining in the industrial world’s heaviest public debt at more than twice the size of the economy in the long run.
