TOKYO — Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has presented an economic growth strategy proposing ¥370 trillion ($2.3 trillion) in public and private investment across 17 sectors through early 2041.
The plan, dubbed "Sanaenomics," reflects a departure from Abenomics, the market-friendly program of her late mentor, former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. While Abenomics deployed monetary stimulus and corporate-governance reforms from 2012 to 2020, Sanaenomics emphasizes state direction of investment.
Ms. Takaichi has reformed the budgeting process to allow all ministries to submit multi-year funding requests. Initial budget requests for next year, announced Sept. 4, total a record ¥143 trillion, up from ¥122.5 trillion.
She has empowered bureaucrats at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the agency that directed Japan's post-war economic expansion, while limiting the influence of fiscal hawks within the Ministry of Finance.
Wakatabe Masazumi, a former Bank of Japan deputy governor and one of her key economic advisers, said Ms. Takaichi "thinks like the CEO of Japan." Economist Jesper Koll said she lacks an "inbred conviction that markets are the best way to do things," indicating her preference for government intervention.
The government-backed semiconductor firm Rapidus serves as a model for this strategy. Tobias Harris of Japan Foresight, a consultancy, said the administration aims to replicate the Rapidus model across various sectors.
The scale of proposed spending has raised fiscal concerns. Yields on ten-year Japanese government bonds briefly surpassed 3 percent in September, the first time in three decades.
Ms. Takaichi assumed the premiership in October 2025.
