Japan on Friday (May 26) unveiled an outline of its mid-term economic roadmap that featured Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s policy priorities such as efforts to stem a declining birthrate with increases in childcare spending.

The outline, which will serve as a backbone for the government’s economic policy roadmap set to be finalised in June, made no mention of how to fund such spending measures – a key sticking point ahead of a possible snap election Kishida could call later this year.

In Japan, fiscal reform is an urgent task for the industrial world’s most heavily indebted government with public debt at more than 250 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP).