Japan has accepted more than 2,000 Ukrainians who have fled conflict in their country since last February and will extend their stay for a year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday
TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th February, 2023) Japan has accepted more than 2,000 Ukrainians who have fled conflict in their country since last February and will extend their stay for a year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday.
"The government of Japan... has decided to extend for another year its support for Ukrainian refugees who have no one to rely on in Japan," he told a news conference ahead of the G7 online summit on Ukraine.
Kishida pledged another $5.5 billion in financial assistance to Ukraine. This comes on top of $900 million in humanitarian aid and $670 million in grants and loans that his government has allocated to the eastern European country in less than a year. The total now stands at over $7 billion.
The new pledge of financing for Ukraine raised eyebrows among the Japanese who logged in to watch the conference online on the cabinet's YouTube channel. Some viewers complained of lack of government assistance for young families and students struggling with rising living costs.
Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki admitted in January that Japan's public debt burden was more than twice the size of its annual economic output, signaling a need for more hands-on approach to budget-balancing in the world's third-largest economy.
