IMF hails Japan's plan to boost social spending

The International Monetary Fund welcomed on Sunday the new Japanese
government's plan to use stimulus funds to boost social spending,
saying it would bolster much- needed private demand. "We certainly
welcome the government's intentions to improve public sector
efficiency in a way that will allow them to reform social spending in
a way that's going to raise imports and demand," Anoop Singh,
director of the IMF's Asia Pacific department, said at a news
conference in Istanbul ahead of annual meetings of the IMF and the
World Bank. Japan's centre-left Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who
took office last month after his Democratic Party of Japan won a
landslide election victory that rejected the long-dominant
conservative Liberal Democratic Party, pledged to freeze part of his
predecessor's supplemental budget to put more money into the pockets
of ordinary people. Former premier Taro Aso in May pushed a
supplementary budget through parliament to fund economic stimulus
measures.