The new candidate for Prime Minister, Taro Kono, urges the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates.

Kono Taro, who is considered as one of the potential candidates for the next prime minister, stated on Wednesday that Japan must balance its budget and push the central bank to raise interest rates to ease concerns about the national finances. Kono also criticized former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" policy of reflation, saying that Japan needs to shift towards policies that focus more on structural reforms and cutting government spending. Former Japanese Minister of Digitalization Kono said at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, "The budget size has been continuously expanding, so now we should indeed focus on balancing the budget, cutting unnecessary spending, and streamlining the social security system." Kono stated that as the economy moves out of deflation and experiences rising inflation, Japan needs a new economic policy that emphasizes structural reforms. Kono said that there are still some people within the Liberal Democratic Party, mainly former members of the Abe faction, who are unwilling to admit that the era of Abenomics is over. I think they are wrong. We definitely need to carry out structural reforms.