Japan gains excuse to delay sales tax hike and boost fiscal spending

Tokyo

FORMER World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Wednesday that he has advised Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to delay a consumption tax increase scheduled for early next year, and to focus instead on implementing fiscal stimulus to speed up the country's recovery from economic recession.

The advice was given during the first of a series of meetings among leading economists and officials which host country Japan has convened in the run-up to the G-7 summit meeting in May; the meetings are being viewed as laying the groundwork for what Japan hopes will be a general shift among advanced nations toward using fiscal stimulus.