Risk of Japan going bankrupt is real, say analysts

Greece's debt problems may currently be in the spotlight but Japan is walking its own financial tightrope, analysts say, with a public debt mountain bigger than that of any other industrialised nation.
Public debt is expected to hit 200 percent of GDP in the next year as the government tries to spend its way out of the economic doldrums despite plummeting tax revenues and soaring welfare costs for its ageing population.
Based on fiscal 2010's nominal GDP of 475 trillion yen, Japan's debt is estimated to reach around 950 trillion yen -- or roughly 7.5 million yen per person.
Japan "can't finance" its record trillion-dollar budget passed in March for the coming year as it tries to stimulate its fragile economy, said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
"Japan's revenue is roughly 37 trillion yen and debt is 44 trillion yen in fiscal 2010, " he said. "Its debt to budget ratio is more than 50 percent."
Without issuing more government bonds, Japan "would go bankrupt by 2011", he added.
Despite crawling out of a severe year-long recession in 2009, Japan's recovery remains fragile with deflation, high public debt and weak domestic demand all concerns for policymakers.
Japan was stuck in a deflationary spiral for years after its asset price bubble burst in the early 1990s, hitting corporate earnings and prompting consumers to put off purchases in the hope of further price drops.
Its huge public debt is a legacy of massive stimulus spending during the economic "lost decade" of the 1990s, as well as a series of pump-priming packages to tackle the recession which began in 2008.
Standard & Poor's in January warned that it might cut its rating on Japanese government bonds, which could raise Japan's borrowing costs amid the faltering efforts of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government to curb debt.
The system of Japanese government bonds being bought by institutions such as the huge Japan Post Bank has been key in enabling Japan to remain buoyant since its stock market crash of 1990.