The government on April 7 approved an economic relief package totaling 108.2 trillion yen ($1 trillion) to grapple with fallout from the new coronavirus pandemic, calling it the nation’s “largest ever.”

But critics raised skepticism if the massive spending will be sufficient to ease the blow to struggling Japanese households and businesses, which face even tougher times ahead after the government's declaration of a state of emergency to deal with the health crisis.

The stimulus measures will be implemented in two stages: the first is until the epidemic is contained and the second is when the country moves to achieve economic recovery.

Measures for the first stage are aimed at shoring up the public health care system and helping households.

Those in the second stage are intended to bolster personal consumption and projects that will facilitate teleworking among businesses.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the centerpiece of the package is cash handouts worth in excess of 6 trillion yen.

The government earmarked 4 trillion yen for lump sum cash payments of 300,000 yen that will be offered as early as May to low-income households as well as moderate-income households whose income has dropped by half.

The number of such households is estimated at 13 million.

The government will also provide up to 2 million yen to small and midsize businesses whose sales dropped by more than 50 percent to compensate for their losses.

Self-employed people, including those working without regular contracts, will each receive up to 1 million yen.

The provision of cash handouts to small and midsize companies, as well as the self-employed, amounts to 2.3 trillion yen.

The government will also commit 45 trillion yen to help cash-strapped businesses. Of this, about 38 trillion yen will go to small and midsize companies, which are particularly vulnerable in an economic downturn.

About 2. 5 trillion yen will be spent on measures to contain the new coronavirus. This includes steps to prop up the public health care system and develop medications to treat COVID-19, the pneumonia-like disease caused by the coronavirus.

The government will also devote 149 billion yen in grants for the nation’s 47 prefectural governments to enable them to improve local health care systems, 11.7 billion yen as assistance to produce ventilators and facial masks and 23.3 billion yen on cloth face masks to be delivered to all households.

The government’s economic package of 108 trillion yen represents about 20 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product.

“It is among the world’s largest economic measures,” Abe emphasized at a meeting of the government and his Liberal Democratic Party on the morning of April 7.

The latest package compared with one totaling 56.8 trillion yen implemented in April 2009 to tackle the financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The Japanese economy, the world's third largest, is fast stagnating due to the spread of the coronavirus.

The nation’s economic growth in real terms is projected to contract at an annualized 11.3 percent in the quarter from April to June, according to Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting Co.

Abe was determined to commit to an economic package accounting for “20 percent of the GDP,” according to a senior LDP official.

“The prime minister paid attention to what Germany has been doing from the start,” the official said.

Berlin announced an economic stimulus package valued at 750 billion euros (90 trillion yen), about 20 percent of its GDP.

But some analysts were skeptical about Abe’s pitch that Japan’s economic measures are the nation's "largest ever.”

They noted that the relief package includes measures compiled late last year and steps to fight infectious diseases that have yet to be implemented after they were announced, as well as loans that borrowers will have to repay later and a grace period for tax payment and social security premiums amounting to 26 trillion yen for troubled companies.

The net amount the government will provide additionally in direct economic relief as a result of the coronavirus epidemic will come to only 18.6 trillion yen.

“I am highly skeptical that these measures will work effectively in the real economy,” Jun Azumi, chief of the Diet affairs with the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters April 7, echoing the view of many others in the opposition camp.

Even within the central government, skepticism was raised about the package.

“I am uncomfortable with counting the sum for a grace period for tax payments as part of the package,” the official said. “(The prime minister) had no choice but to underscore the scope of the package as the measures did not have much substance.”