Japan to consider $100B stimulus measure

TOKYO, April 7 (UPI) -- Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso has called for a supplemental spending package of $99.73 billion to get the world's second largest economy back on track.

The package would be the largest stimulus measure ever in Japan, The Japan Times reported Tuesday.

"Considering the most recent plunge (of the Japanese economy), which is one of the worst among the major advanced nations . . . the prime minister instructed me to consider countermeasures on an actual spending scale of more than 2 percent of gross domestic product," Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said after a meeting with Aso.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation said Japan's outstanding debt in 2008 reached 170 percent of the GDP, indicating the overall condition of the economy had deteriorated.

Aso proposed following the "T principles," referring to "timely, targeted and temporary," the newspaper said.