TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan on Tuesday announced a second package of measures worth about $4 billion in spending to cope with the fallout to the economy of the coronavirus outbreak, focusing on support for small and mid-sized firms.
An employee, wearing protective face mask following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), offers food outside a restaurant on an almost empty street in Yokohama’s Chinatown, south of Tokyo, Japan March 10, 2020. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido
The package, totalling 430.8 billion yen ($4.1 billion) in spending, shows how much pressure policymakers are under to bolster fragile growth and stem the risk of corporate bankruptcies, as event cancellations and a slump in tourism threaten to hit the broader economy hard.
To help fund the package, the government will tap the rest of this fiscal year’s budget reserve of about 270 billion yen, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
“I’ll carry out necessary and sufficient economic and fiscal management without…
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