TOKYO, December 12. /TASS/. The Japanese government has proposed to allocate a record 9 trillion yen (approximately $57.7 billion) for defense in the next fiscal year (starting April 1, 2026), the Kyodo news agency reported, citing sources.

The budget draft is expected to be adopted at a cabinet meeting in late December. According to the agency’s sources, the authorities intend to purchase attack drones to create a coastal defense system and long-range missiles. The agency does not specify which missiles exactly will be procured.

Previously, the lower house of the Japanese parliament passed a supplementary budget for the 2025 fiscal year (ending March 31, 2026) amounting to 18.3 trillion yen (approximately $117 billion), of which 847.5 billion yen (over $5.4 billion) was allocated for defense.

Japan has indicated that it plans to increase military spending to 2% of its GDP by 2027. The country’s Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, intends to accelerate this process by achieving the goal as early as April 2026. Furthermore, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which she leads, plans to raise the income tax in 2027 to provide funding for the growing defense expenditures.

Even before Takaichi came to power, Japan decided to increase defense spending to 43 trillion yen (approximately $278 billion) over the five-year period up to March 2028.