Japan legislature passes $910 bln budget

Japan's parliament on Friday passed a record 88.5 trillion yen (910 billion dollar) budget for the 2009 fiscal year designed to boost the recession-hit economy.

Japan's parliament on Friday passed a record 88.5 trillion yen (910 billion dollar) budget for the 2009 fiscal year designed to boost the recession-hit economy.

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The budget sets aside one trillion yen in special emergency reserves to be used for projects such as public works.

The bill was rejected in the opposition-controlled upper house. But under Japan's constitution the lower house, where the ruling bloc holds a comfortable majority, was able to pass it as a law with a re-vote.

Prime Minister Taro Aso plans to launch an additional budget for the new fiscal year, starting April, to pump up the world's number-two economy, which is facing its worst recession in more than three decades. the economy, Asia's largest, shrank at an annualised pace of 12.7 percent in the three months to December -- its worst performance since 1974, when the country was reeling from the global oil crisis.