Japan is making progress toward its goal of bringing defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said, with the defense-related budget for this fiscal year set to rise to just short of that threshold, at 1.9% of GDP.
Koizumi told a regular news conference Friday that defense-related spending in the fiscal year through March 2027 would total ¥10.6 billion ($66.6 million), approaching the gold standard 2% of GDP level that many Western nations have targeted.
As a percentage of GDP, spending will rise by 0.1 percentage point year on year — though Koizumi said this calculation was made against GDP in fiscal 2022, when the 2% goal was outlined in Japan’s National Security Strategy and the purchasing power of the yen was much stronger than it is now.
