Japan Likely to Issue More Debt on Top of Its $8.5tn Public Liabilities

Japan is expected to issue more debt to revive its economic growth, as the nation's latest sales tax hike has hurt consumption.

Industry experts told Bloomberg that the country would go for even more debt sales, as the sales tax hike is failing to generate revenues for the government.

The sales tax hike in April was intended to boost revenue in order to address huge government liabilities of 1 quadrillion yen ($8.5tn, €6.9tn, £5.4tn), which is more than double the nation's gross domestic product (GDP).

However, the sales tax increase resulted in a plunge in consumption and the economy fell into technical recession in the third quarter.

"The government's policies have failed," Bloomberg quoted Will Tseng, a money manager in Taipei at Mirae Asset Global Investments, as saying.

"They're still issuing more debt and printing more money to try to help the economy. They're in a really bad cycle."

Carl Weinberg, the chief economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, told the news agency that Japan will go back to its routine of borrowing more to fund plans to spur growth. He also noted that Japan's aging population is adding further woes to the economy.

"The population and the economy are contracting, and the debt is growing, and that's an unsustainable trend," Weinberg said.

"Japan remains doomed by its demographics and, of course, by its horrible debt."

Japan's borrowings stand at 226% of gross domestic product, the largest debt burden in the world, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Despite the huge debt, the government is planning to sell a record 181.5tn yen of securities for fiscal year 2014, according to the Ministry of Finance.

The government is likely to issue the same amount of debt in the next fiscal year as well, said Hideo Shimomura, the Tokyo-based chief fund investor at Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management.