Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Monday that economic and social activity \u201cshould not be halted\u201d despite energy disruptions caused by the ongoing Middle East conflict, according to local media reports. Her remarks came days after the government urged the public to limit energy usage amid supply uncertainties due to the war, Kyodo News reported. \u201cI do not believe economic or social activity should be halted at this point,\u201d Takaichi said in response to a parliamentary question about emergency economic measures.<\/p>\n
Strait of Hormuz closure hits resource-strapped Japan<\/p>\n
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28, has left resource-dependent Asian nations \u2014 including Japan \u2014 calling for reduced fuel consumption. Japan relies heavily on the Middle East for its crude oil imports. Takaichi stated that her government is working to secure oil supplies from alternative sources.<\/p>\n
Strategic reserves and budget flexibility<\/p>\n
Japan has already released its strategic oil reserves twice, with a third release scheduled for May 1. Takaichi said she does not currently see the need for a supplementary budget, noting that the government can tap reserve funds if necessary to respond to the Middle East situation. Parliament enacted a record 122.31 trillion yen ($768 billion) fiscal 2026 budget earlier this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Monday that economic and social activity \u201cshould not be halted\u201d despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[191,189,34,2433,14,8,188,190,35,2299,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-12502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-economy","9":"tag-economy-of-japan","10":"tag-energy","11":"tag-hormuz","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-japan","14":"tag-japans-economy","15":"tag-japanese-economy","16":"tag-oil","17":"tag-takaichi","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}