By SHIN KASAHARA/ Staff Writer
November 18, 2022 at 17:15 JST
The Tokyo metropolitan government building (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
The Tokyo metropolitan government plans to provide low-income households with coupons that can be exchanged for food, such as Japanese rice and vegetables, to help them cope with inflation.
The government will submit a supplementary budget of around 30 billion yen ($215 million), which includes costs for the coupon program, to the metropolitan assembly in December.
About 1.74 million households that are exempt from the residential tax will be eligible for the coupons, according to metropolitan officials.
The program is expected to start early next year.
The metropolitan government said it initially discussed cash handouts, but the central government has already announced plans to provide 50,000 yen to low-income households.
Therefore, metropolitan officials decided that coupons would be distributed in consideration of the burden of municipal governments, which will oversee the hand-out process.
Coupon recipients who choose rice can receive 25 kilograms per household, for example.
The metropolitan government also wants the coupon project to promote local agriculture.
It has encouraged people to use home-grown rice and rice flour instead of wheat this year. Prices of imported wheat have been rising since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
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