Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to push forward the next year's scheduled sales tax hike by all means and take steps to ease the impact on consumption.
Abe pointed out that his ruling party won last year's House elections and pledged to use proceeds from a sales tax increase to make the welfare system more sustainable.
Abe has postponed this move twice after increasing the sales tax to 8 percent from 5 percent in 2014. The Japanese prime minister plans to raise taxes to 10 percent in October next year.
There are warnings that raising taxes next year could hurt already weak private consumption at a time that a construction boom leading up to hosting the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Commenting on that the government could announce the end of deflation before inflation hits the Bank of Japan target of 2 percent. Abe said "Japan may not have achieved the inflation target, but what we are really focused on is employment."
