NEW YORK -- Japan needs to raise the consumption tax to 10% next year as planned, economics professor Takatoshi Ito said in a speech Monday, stressing that an added burden is necessary for fiscal consolidation.
Economics professor Takatoshi Ito speaks at the event sponsored by the Nikkei Asian Review. Referring to Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio, which exceeds a whopping 200%, Ito warned that "we are clearly on a runaway path of the debt, so we cannot go on like that for much longer."
