110 tril. yen sought for Japan FY 2023 budget, defense costs to rise

General-account budget requests by Japan's ministries and agencies for fiscal 2023 totaled over 110 trillion yen ($790 billion), with defense spending likely to hit a record high, a Kyodo News tally found Wednesday.The requests for the year starting in April marked the first drop in five years from a record 111.66 trillion yen sought for fiscal 2022, but they are set to increase further due to additional costs to address higher commodity prices and the COVID-19 pandemic.The size of the initial budget could end up surpassing the previous year's 107.60 trillion yen, given swelling social secu…READ FULL ARTICLE