Japan: Trade Ministry to Spend More on Energy Next Year

Japan’s Trade Ministry plans to boost spending on energy resources in the year starting April 2008 after prices rose and because of competition from countries with booming economies like China and India.

The ministry’s natural resources agency is seeking an 11 percent rise in its budget to 18.97 billion yen ($163 million) to secure supplies of oil, natural gas and uranium, it said in a statement today. The agency also requested a 19 percent increase in funds to promote cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Japan, which imports about 99 percent of its oil, has stepped up efforts to secure supplies of crude and uranium, after prices surged to records. The cost of uranium, the fuel used for nuclear power, has risen more than tenfold in the last decade, as India and China plan to build more nuclear power stations to feed their growing economies.

The ministry’s Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency wants to raise its budget by 1.6 percent to 38.4 billion yen, it said in a separate statement today. The gain is mainly to fund a 50 percent increase in spending for enhancing earthquake resistance at nuclear plants and preventing other disasters.

Japan, the world’s second-biggest economy, wants to expand nuclear power to cut greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels. The government plans to raise the share of atomic energy in power generation to more than 40 percent by 2030 from 30 percent today.

Bloomberg