The draft 1999 budget allocates nearly $705bn towards kickstarting the nation's ailing economy.

Unemployment is reaching unprecedented levels

Among the measures are $86bn in new public works spending and tax cuts worth more than $78bn.

Other projects include large increases for spending on social security, scientific research and programmes to retrain the unemployed.

But the proposals have yet to win approval from parliament and the country's government has warned that the plans double the size of Japan's annual deficit.

Record jobless

When Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi took office last summer, he said reviving the economy as his administration's primary goal.

But statistics continue to reinforce the severity of Japan's downturn.

Recent figures put unemployment in Japan at record levels, largely attributed to industrial layoffs and a continuing decline in consumer spending.

The jobless rate of 4.4% - equal to that of the US - is the highest since the Japanese government began collecting such data in 1953.

And tax revenues are projected to shrink by 20% from this year after tax cuts.